De novo transcriptome assembly of the plant Helianthemum marifolium for the study of adaptive mechanisms

Abstract

The genus Helianthemum, commonly known as rockroses, encompasses 140 species primarily distributed in the Palearctic region, with notable diversification driven by climatic and geological changes. These plants are valuable for studying speciation processes and ecological divergence. The chemical properties of the leaves have also been investigated for containing valuable bioactive compounds with several therapeutic properties. However, the availability of genomic resources for species in this genus are almost entirely lacking. Here, we assembled and annotated the first reference transcriptome of Helianthemum marifolium, a species with wide morphological variability and infraspecific diversity. Illumina paired-end RNA sequences were generated using leaves from 16 individuals, representing the four recognized subspecies, all cultivated in a greenhouse. RNA reads were assembled with Trinity and Oases, and EvidentialGene produced a transcriptome with 122,002 transcripts. The transcriptome showed 59524 hits on the UniProtBK database through BLASTx. This transcriptome will be an invaluable resource for transcriptome-level population studies, conservation genetics of the many endangered species within the genus, and for deepen into the metabolic pathways of leaf-derived compounds.