Comparative de novo transcriptome analysis of male and female Sea buckthorn

Sea buckthorn is a dioecious medicinal plant found at high altitude. The plant has both male and female reproductive organs in separate individuals. In this article, whole transcriptome de novo assemblies of male and female flower bud samples were carried out using Illumina NextSeq 500 platform to determine the role of the genes involved in sex determination. Moreover, genes with differential expression in male and female transcriptomes were identified to understand the underlying sex determination mechanism. The current study showed 63,904 and 62,272 coding sequences (CDS) in female and male transcriptome data sets, respectively. 16,831 common CDS were screened out from both transcriptomes, out of which 625 were upregulated and 491 were found to be downregulated. To understand the potential regulatory roles of differentially expressed genes in metabolic networks and biosynthetic pathways: KEGG mapping, gene ontology, and co-expression network analysis were performed. Comparison with Flowering Interactive Database (FLOR-ID) resulted in eight differentially expressed genes viz. CHD3-type chromatin-remodeling factor PICKLE (PKL), phytochrome-associated serine/threonine-protein phosphatase (FYPP), protein TOPLESS (TPL), sensitive to freezing 6 (SFR6), lysine-specific histone demethylase 1 homolog 1 (LDL1), pre-mRNA-processing-splicing factor 8A (PRP8A), sucrose synthase 4 (SUS4), ubiquitin carboxyl-terminal hydrolase 12 (UBP12), known to be broadly involved in flowering, photoperiodism, embryo development, and cold response pathways. Male and female flower bud transcriptome data of Sea buckthorn may provide comprehensive information at genomic level for the identification of genetic regulation involved in sex determination.