Background: The Sodom apple (Calotropis gigantea), a member of the Asclepiadaceae family, is a large evergreen shrub native to continental Asia and northern Africa. As an important medicinal shrub and a fiber resource plant, there is an urgent need for developing molecular markers to facilitate breeding and genetic improvement of varieties.
Results: In this study, using the Illumina high throughput sequencing technique we obtained about 45 million paired end sequencing reads, De novo assembled and generated a total of 133,634 transcripts with a mean of 1837.47 bp in length. Based on protein homology searches against available databases, a total of 21,851 unigenes were functionally annotated. In particular, many transcripts that encode for putative proteins involved in fiber and secondary metabolite biosynthesis were identified and analyzed. Key fiber genes identified were validated experimentally through Real-Time PCR technique. Various transcription factors involved in regulating plant response to abiotic stress were also identified. In addition, based on the unigene sequences assembled, 11,623 microsatellites loci were detected, which provide very useful resources for developing microsatellite molecular markers.
Conclusion: This study is the first report on transcriptome information in the Calotropis species and provides rich gene transcript resources for conducting further studies on understanding the molecular basis of fiber and secondary metabolite biosynthesis, serving the genetic improvement and resource utilization in Calotropis plants.