Abstract
BackgroundBlueberry is an economically important fruit crop in Ericaceae family. The substantial quantities of flavonoids in blueberry have been implicated in a broad range of health benefits. However, the information regarding fruit development and flavonoid metabolites based on the transcriptome level is still limited. In the present study, the transcriptome and gene expression profiling over berry development, especially during color development were initiated.ResultsA total of approximately 13.67 Gbp of data were obtained and assembled into 186,962 transcripts and 80,836 unigenes from three stages of blueberry fruit and color development. A large number of simple sequence repeats (SSRs) and candidate genes, which are potentially involved in plant development, metabolic and hormone pathways, were identified. A total of 6429 sequences containing 8796 SSRs were characterized from 15,457 unigenes and 1763 unigenes contained more than one SSR. The expression profiles of key genes involved in anthocyanin biosynthesis were also studied. In addition, a comparison between our dataset and other published results was carried out.ConclusionsOur high quality reads produced in this study are an important advancement and provide a new resource for the interpretation of high-throughput data for blueberry species whether regarding sequencing data depth or species extension. The use of this transcriptome data will serve as a valuable public information database for the studies of blueberry genome and would greatly boost the research of fruit and color development, flavonoid metabolisms and regulation and breeding of more healthful blueberries.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12870-016-0866-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
Blueberry is an economically important fruit crop in Ericaceae family
Sequence analysis and de novo assembly The high quality Illumina sequencing data produced from Vaccinium corymbosum ‘Sierra’ during fruit and color development has been deposited in NCBI SRA database under accession number: SRR2910056
The transcripts were subjected to cluster and assembly analyses, resulting in 80,836 unigenes (N50 value = 1204 bp), among which 15,457 (19.13 %) genes were greater than 1 kb
Summary
Blueberry is an economically important fruit crop in Ericaceae family. The substantial quantities of flavonoids in blueberry have been implicated in a broad range of health benefits. The information regarding fruit development and flavonoid metabolites based on the transcriptome level is still limited. Blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum) is an economically important small fruit crop and a member of Ericaceae family which includes many species, such as blueberry, cranberry (V. macrocarpon), lingonberry (V. vitis-idaea), rhododendron, and more than 400 other species [1, 2]. Demand and consumption worldwide of blueberry has greatly increased in recent years for its beneficial influence on human health. These positive effects are generally due to the high levels of flavonoid [6], which have been linked to improve night vision, prevent macular degeneration, and decrease the heart disease [7, 8]. The information is still limited regarding the control of horticultural traits such as the molecular regulation mechanisms of blueberry maturation and flavonoid metabolism
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