Transcriptome Profiles of Circular RNAs in Common Wheat during Fusarium Head Blight Disease

Abstract

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are covalently closed RNA molecules, and have been identified in many crops. However, there are few datasets for circRNA junctions from common wheat during Fusarium head blight disease. In the present study, we used RNA-seq to determine the changes in circRNAs among the control (CK) and 1, 3, and 5 days post-Fusarium graminearum inoculation (dpi) samples. More than one billion reads were produced from 12 libraries, and 99.99% of the reads were successfully mapped to a wheat reference genome. In total, 2091 high-confidence circRNAs—which had two or more junction reads and were supported by at least two circRNA identification algorithms—were detected. The completed expression profiling revealed a distinct expression pattern of circRNAs among the CK, 1dpi, 3dpi and 5dpi samples. This study provides a valuable resource for identifying F. graminearum infection-responsive circRNAs in wheat and for further functional characterization of circRNAs that participated in the Fusarium head blight disease response of wheat.