Transcriptomic analysis of a psammophyte food crop, sand rice (Agriophyllum squarrosum) and identification of candidate genes essential for sand dune adaptation.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Sand rice (Agriophyllum squarrosum) is an annual desert plant adapted to mobile sand dunes in arid and semi-arid regions of Central Asia. The sand rice seeds have excellent nutrition value and have been historically consumed by local populations in the desert regions of northwest China. Sand rice is a potential food crop resilient to ongoing climate change; however, partly due to the scarcity of genetic information, this species has undergone only little agronomic modifications through classical breeding during recent years.

Results

We generated a deep transcriptomic sequencing of sand rice, which uncovers 67,741 unigenes. Phylogenetic analysis based on 221 single-copy genes showed close relationship between sand rice and the recently domesticated crop sugar beet.

SUBMITTER: Zhao P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4459065 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature