De Novo Transcriptome Assembly of H11648 by Illumina Sequencing and Identification of Cellulose Synthase Genes in Species.

plants are important crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM) plants with multiple agricultural uses, such as being used in tequila and fiber production. hybrid H11648 ((. Trel. and Nowell × . Haw.) × . ) is the main cultivated species for fiber production in large tropical areas around the world. In this study, we conducted a transcriptome analysis of . H11648. About 49.25 million clean reads were obtained by Illumina paired-end sequencing. De novo assembly produced 148,046 unigenes with more than 40% annotated in public databases, or matched homologs in model plants. More homologous gene pairs were found in genome than in or rice, which indicated a close evolutionary relationship between and . H11648. CAM-related gene families were also characterized as previously reported in . We further identified 12 cellulose synthase genes () in genome and 38 sequences from . H11648, , and . The full-length genes were used as references for the cloning and assembly of their homologs in other species. As a result, we obtained //// genes with full-length coding region in the four gave species. Phylogenetic and expression analysis revealed a conserved evolutionary pattern, which could not explain the distinct fiber traits in different species. We inferred that transcriptional regulation might be responsible for fiber development. This study represents the transcriptome of . H11648, which would expand the number of genes and benefit relevant studies of fiber development.