De novo transcriptome assembly and data for the blue-winged teal (Spatula discors)

Amanda C Dolinski; Jared J Homola; Mark D Jankowski; Jennifer C Owen

doi:10.1016/j.dib.2020.105380

De novo transcriptome assembly and data for the blue-winged teal (Spatula discors)

Data Brief. 2020 Mar 5:30:105380. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.105380. eCollection 2020 Jun.

Authors

Amanda C Dolinski¹, Jared J Homola¹, Mark D Jankowski^{1

2}, Jennifer C Owen^{1

3}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States.
² U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 10, Seattle, WA 98101,United States.
³ Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, United States.

Abstract

The blue-winged teal (Spatula discors) is a recreationally and ecologically important dabbling duck species in North America. Transcriptomic data of this species can be used in public and animal health studies given its role as a natural reservoir host for avian influenza, which can be a zoonotic disease of high concern. Ileum and bursa of Fabricius tissues were sampled from six captive raised blue-winged teals, four of the six who were experimentally infected with low-pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N9. RNAseq data were generated from extracted total mRNA from each tissue and pooled to create a de novo assembly of the transcriptome using Trinity. A total of 571,105 transcripts were identified at 449,956 unique unigenes that have been functionally annotated. This transcriptome will be useful for future blue-winged teal gene expression research, especially in hypothesis driven differential expression studies to determine the driving forces of avian influenza host-pathogen interactions, spatial distribution, and transmission.

Keywords: Avian; Influenza; RNAseq; Transcriptome; Trinity.