Optimization and application of non-native Phragmites australis transcriptome assemblies

• Published in: PloS one 2023-01, Vol.18 (1), p.e0280354-e0280354
• Main Authors: Tao, Feng, Fan, Chuanzhu, Liu, Yimin, Sivakumar, Subashini, Kowalski, Kurt P, Golenberg, Edward M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Analysis; Annotations; Aquatic plants; Assemblies; Assembly; Biology and Life Sciences; Common reed; DNA binding proteins; Ecology; Environmental aspects; Gene expression; Gene Expression Profiling; Genetic aspects; Genomes; Growth; Herbicides; Introduced species; Invasive plants; Invasive species; Invasiveness; Mathematical optimization; North America; Optimization; Phragmites australis; Plant species; Plants - genetics; Poaceae - genetics; Research and Analysis Methods; Salinity; Simple sequence repeats; Transcription factors; Transcriptome; Transcriptomes; Transcriptomics
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0280354

Phragmites australis (common reed) has a cosmopolitan distribution and has been suggested as a model organism for the study of invasive plant species. In North America, the non-native subspecies (ssp. australis) is widely distributed across the contiguous 48 states in the United States and large parts of Canada. Even though millions of dollars are spent annually on Phragmites management, insufficient knowledge of P. australis impeded the efficiency of management. To solve this problem, transcriptomic information generated from multiple types of tissue could be a valuable resource for future studies. Here, we constructed forty-nine P. australis transcriptomes assemblies via different assembly tools and multiple parameter settings. The optimal transcriptome assembly for functional annotation and downstream analyses was selected among these transcriptome assemblies by comprehensive assessments. For a total of 422,589 transcripts assembled in this transcriptome assembly, 319,046 transcripts (75.5%) have at least one functional annotation. Within the transcriptome assembly, we further identified 1,495 transcripts showing tissue-specific expression pattern, 10,828 putative transcription factors, and 72,165 candidates for simple sequence repeats markers. The identification and analyses of predicted transcripts related to herbicide- and salinity-resistant genes were shown as two applications of the transcriptomic information to facilitate further research on P. australis. Transcriptome assembly and selection would be important for the transcriptome annotation. With this optimal transcriptome assembly and all relative information from downstream analyses, we have helped to establish foundations for future studies on the mechanisms underlying the invasiveness of non-native P. australis subspecies.