Abstract
Acacia koa is a leguminous timber tree endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. For breeding projects involved in improving wood quality of A. koa, understanding of genes influencing wood quality is crucial. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify A. koa genes in the monolignol biosynthesis pathway, which is involved in wood formation and development. In this study, whole transcritpome sequencing of A. koa seedlings was performed through Illumina-based sequencing and over 88 million high-quality paired-end raw reads were generated. Trinity de novo assembly of those reads yielded 85,533 unigenes with an average length of 641 bp. Based on sequence similarity search with known proteins, we annotated 47,038 of the unigenes. Using the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database, 149 unigenes were assigned to ortholog groups of enzymes involved in the monolignol biosynthesis pathway. In addition, we identified complete coding sequences of genes for all the ten identified enzymes of the pathway. Future studies on expression levels of these genes in A. koa with different wood qualities will provide a tool for selection of desirable types. Comprehensive sequence resources of A. koa generated through this study will contribute to genomic studies and improvement programs for this tree.
Highlights
Acacia koa is an important leguminous tree endemic to the Hawaiian Islands
Our objectives were to enrich the gene resource of A. koa with the sequencing data and to identify the transcripts involved in the monolignol biosynthesis pathway, which may be related to wood formation and development in A. koa, as lignin is one of the major constituents of wood
Using the Trinity de novo assembly software, 85,533 unigenes were generated with a total length of 45.82 Mb, an average length of 640.97 bp and an N50 length of 1,068 bp (Table 1)
Summary
Acacia koa is an important leguminous tree endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. The native A. koa forests are broadly distributed across all five major Hawaiian Islands (Wagner et al, 1990). A. koa serves as an ecologically and economically vital resource for the Hawaiian Islands. It provides a habitat for many native fauna and flora (Elevitch et al, 2006; Sakai, 1988; Whitesell, 1990). Due to the beautiful texture, hardiness, and carving quality of the wood, the A. koa timber, referred to as Hawaiian mahogany, is a high priced commodity with a current market value of up to $125 per board foot (Baker et al, 2009). The gross value of the A. koa timber and wood products produced is estimated to be in the range of $20-$30 million annually (Baker et al, 2009; Yanagida et al, 2004)
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