De Novo Assembly of Expressed Transcripts and Comprehensive Analysis of the Transcriptomes of the Antarctic Vascular Plant Deschampsia antarctica

Abstract

D. antarctica, Antarctic hairgrass, is the only natural grass colonized in the Antarctic, the most severe natural habitats in the world especially for terrestrial plants. This species has been the subject of many fields of biological studies: ecology, taxonomy, anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and molecular biology aimed at understanding the effect of global climate change on terrestrial ecosystem and genetic basis for adaptation under varying environmental stresses. Here we present the sequencing and analysis of transcriptomes of D. antarctica grown under various stress conditions. This transcriptome dataset provides valuable genetic resources for non-model species and for gene discovery associated with stress-tolerance.