Functional annotation of assembled sequences from Bergenia ciliata based on next-generation sequencing

Bergenia ciliata (Haw.) Sternb. is an important Himalayan medicinal plant with diverse pharmacological properties owing to its rich repertoire of bioactive phytochemicals. Despite its medicinal importance, genomic and transcriptomic resources for this non-model species remain scarce, limiting the identification of functional genes and the elucidation of biosynthetic pathways underlying the production of therapeutically important metabolites. To address this knowledge gap, we generated a de novo leaf transcriptome using Illumina RNA sequencing and performed comprehensive functional annotation of the assembled unigenes. A total of 21,490,725 raw paired-end reads were generated, resulting in 65,010 assembled unigenes with an average length of 1,024 bp. Of these, 54,732 (84.19%) unigenes were successfully annotated in at least one public database, including Nr (82.41%), Nt (68.14%), Swiss-Prot (65.05%), GO (45.34%), KEGG (34.67%), Pfam (31.70%), and KOG (23.11%). Functional annotation revealed that a large proportion of unigenes are involved in metabolic processes, catalytic activity, protein turnover, and signal transduction, indicating active metabolic and regulatory networks in B. ciliata. This study provides the comprehensive transcriptomic resource for B. ciliata, substantially expanding the genomic resources available for this medicinal species. The generated dataset provides a valuable foundation for functional gene discovery, molecular marker development, comparative transcriptomic studies, and future investigations of the biosynthetic pathways and regulatory mechanisms underlying the production of therapeutically important phytoconstituents.