RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Building a Reference Transcriptome for the Hexaploid Hard Fescue Turfgrass (<em>Festuca brevipila</em>) Using a Combination of PacBio Isoseq and Illumina Sequencing
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2020.02.26.966952
DO 10.1101/2020.02.26.966952
A1 Yinjie Qiu
A1 Ya Yang
A1 Cory D. Hirsch
A1 Eric Watkins
YR 2020
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/02/28/2020.02.26.966952.1.abstract
AB Hard fescue (Festuca brevipila Tracey, 2n=6x=42) is a cool-season turfgrass with a fine leaf texture that performs well under low-input management. Breeding and genetics studies of F. brevipila have been limited due to the complexity of its hexaploid genome. To advance our knowledge of F. brevipila genomics, we used PacBio isoform sequencing to develop a reference transcriptome for this species. Here, we report the F. brevipila reference transcriptome generated from root, crown, leaf, and seed head tissues. We obtained 59,510 full-length transcripts, of which 38,595 were non-redundant full-length transcripts. The longest and shortest transcripts were 11,487 and 58 bp, respectively. To test the polyploid origin of F. brevipila, we sequenced three additional transcriptomes using closely related species on an Illumina platform. The results of our phylotranscriptomic analysis supported the allopolyploid origin of F. brevipila. Overall, the F. brevipila Pacbio Isoseq reference transcriptome provided the foundation for transcriptome studies and allowed breeders for gene discovery in this important turfgrass species.