Abstract
Contact with poison ivy plants is widely dreaded because they produce a natural product called urushiol that is responsible for allergenic contact delayed-dermatitis symptoms lasting for weeks. For this reason, the catchphrase most associated with poison ivy is “leaves of three, let it be”, which serves the purpose of both identification and an appeal for avoidance. Ironically, despite this notoriety, there is a dearth of specific knowledge about nearly all other aspects of poison ivy physiology and ecology. As a means of gaining a more molecular-oriented understanding of poison ivy physiology and ecology, Next Generation DNA sequencing technology was used to develop poison ivy root and leaf RNA-seq transcriptome resources. De novo assembled transcriptomes were analyzed to generate a core set of high quality expressed transcripts present in poison ivy tissue. The predicted protein sequences were evaluated for similarity to SwissProt homologs and InterProScan domains, as well as assigned both GO terms and KEGG annotations. Over 23,000 simple sequence repeats were identified in the transcriptome, and corresponding oligo nucleotide primer pairs were designed. A pan-transcriptome analysis of existing Anacardiaceae transcriptomes revealed conserved and unique transcripts among these species.
Highlights
Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans (L.) Kuntze) is widely known for its ability to induce allergenic contact delayed-dermatitis symptoms that can last for weeks on between 25–40 million people per year in North America [1,2,3,4]
In 2006, poison ivy was shown to respond to elevated atmospheric CO2 levels by growing faster, producing more biomass, and producing a urushiol congener composition that is significantly enriched in more unsaturated pentadecyltriene-catechol congeners [15,16] that are associated with an increased severity of allergenic dermatitis in humans [30]. These findings suggest that expected patterns of climate change will result in poison ivy that is both more weedy and more noxious
In order to comprehensively identify all expressed genes in T. radicans primary organs, we sequenced the transcriptomes of two biological replicates comprised of roots or true leaves, each derived from >10 axenic poison ivy seedlings
Summary
Poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans (L.) Kuntze) is widely known for its ability to induce allergenic contact delayed-dermatitis (poison ivy rash) symptoms that can last for weeks on between 25–40 million people per year in North America [1,2,3,4]. The poison ivy alkylphenol natural product responsible for the allergenic dermatitis is called urushiol [5]. Urushiol is present in all poison ivy organs [10]. Despite the notoriety of poison ivy as a human contact allergen, there are surprisingly few peer reviewed studies in which poison ivy ecology [12,13,14]. Poison ivy shows a high degree of natural phenotypic variation across its natural range. Variation in leaf margin lobing and pubescence of both leaves and fruit that generally align with different
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
