Next generation sequencing-based exploration of genomes and transcriptomes of medicinal plants

Abstract

Medicinal plants are known for their therapeutic potential and have been associated with human history for their use in traditional medicine systems in different countries. Recent advances in next generation sequencing (NGS) technologies have accelerated research on medicinal plants with reduced cost and efforts. NGS technologies not only provide opportunity for high throughput whole genome sequencing, they also facilitate direct RNA sequencing. The sequence data-sets generated can further be explored for application in various areas of research such as comparative genomics, data mining for small and long non-coding RNAs, mining of molecular markers, gene discovery, etc. Continuous efforts are being made by commercial sequencing service providers in improving technology to overcome bioinformatics challenges in NGS data analysis. In recent past, genome sequence projects on various medicinal plants have been successfully accomplished and few others are in pipeline. Similarly, enormous NGS-based transcriptome data have been generated in a number of medicinal plants. In the present review, we have briefly attempted to address advancement in NGS technology, genomic and transcriptomics studies on medicinal plants with special emphasis on seabuckthorn (Hippophae sp.), a medicinally important plant of Indian Himalayas. Moreover, the scope of implementation of NGS based research on medicinal plants have been explored for the selection of candidate genes involved in particular biosynthesis pathways. The identified genes can be exploited for engineering medicinal plants for producing improved quality biologically active phytocompounds.