Shedding Some Light over the Floral Metabolism by Arum Lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica) Spathe De Novo Transcriptome Assembly

Abstract

Zantedeschia aethiopica is an evergreen perennial plant cultivated worldwide and commonly used for ornamental and medicinal purposes including the treatment of bacterial infections. However, the current understanding of molecular and physiological mechanisms in this plant is limited, in comparison to other non-model plants. In order to improve understanding of the biology of this botanical species, RNA-Seq technology was used for transcriptome assembly and characterization. Following Z. aethiopica spathe tissue RNA extraction, high-throughput RNA sequencing was performed with the aim of obtaining both abundant and rare transcript data. Functional profiling based on KEGG Orthology (KO) analysis highlighted contigs that were involved predominantly in genetic information (37%) and metabolism (34%) processes. Predicted proteins involved in the plant circadian system, hormone signal transduction, secondary metabolism and basal immunity are described here. In silico screening of the transcriptome data set for antimicrobial peptide (AMP) –encoding sequences was also carried out and three lipid transfer proteins (LTP) were identified as potential AMPs involved in plant defense. Spathe predicted protein maps were drawn, and suggested that major plant efforts are expended in guaranteeing the maintenance of cell homeostasis, characterized by high investment in carbohydrate, amino acid and energy metabolism as well as in genetic information.

Transcriptome analysis of colored calla lily (Zantedeschia rehmanniiEngl.) by Illumina sequencing:de novoassembly, annotation and EST-SSR marker development

“…This strategy can enrich the large amounts of expressed sequence data for non-model organisms for which the reference genome or transcriptome is not available (Martin & Wang, 2011). Several non-model organisms in the Araceae family, including Z. aethiopica (Cândido et al, 2014) Arum concinnatum (Onda et al, 2015), Anthurium andraeanum (Tian et al, 2013; Yang et al, 2015; Li et al, 2015), Pinellia ternate (Wang et al, 2014), Amorphophallus konjac and A. bulbifer (Zheng et al, 2013; Diao et al, 2014), have been recently studied by transcriptome sequencing, which has provided a better understanding of these crops. EST-SSR markers have been successfully characterized and developed in P. ternate (Wang et al, 2014), A. konjac and A. bulbifer (Zheng et al, 2013).…”

Structure‐guided identification of antimicrobial peptides in the spathe transcriptome of the non‐model plant, arum lily (Zantedeschia aethiopica)

“…These steps were performed according to Cândido, Fernandes et al. (). To find the AMPs from the Z. aethiopica transcriptome, the remaining sequences were submitted to HHPred (Söding, Biegert, & Lupas, ) for secondary structure alignments.…”

“…In this way, our group used previously described regular expressions (RegEx) by Silverstein et al. () to identify novel cs‐AMPs in the non‐model plant aurum lily ( Zantedeschia aethiopica ) transcriptome (Cândido, Fernandes et al., ). Ten potential AMPs were identified from a total of 29,506 proteins.…”

“…They matched with cs‐AMP patterns and present cs‐AMP domains, including three LTPs, three snakin/GASA peptides, and one chimerolectin containing a hevein domain. These peptides were associated with the antimicrobial activity of the protein‐rich fraction of the arum lily's spathe (Cândido, Fernandes et al., ).…”

High-throughput sequencing in medicinal plant transcriptome studies

“…RNA-Seq technology was used for transcriptome assembly and characterization to improve understanding of its biology (Cândido Ede et al, 2014). RNA-Seq technology was used for transcriptome assembly and characterization to improve understanding of its biology (Cândido Ede et al, 2014).…”