RNA-seq in Black and White Sesame

Sesame seeds is an important traditional crop with high oil content and other abundant nutrients which are very beneficial for diet and health of human being. However, the molecular mechanism for metabolite accumulation, especially for oil and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis, is still not very clear in sesame. In this study, the transcriptome profiles of black and white sesame seeds were compared by RNA-sequencing. Transcriptome analysis showed that the expression patterns of genes encoding phenylpropanoid pathway enzymes were different between the two sesame cultivars. Compared with white sesame, most of genes involved in oil biosynthesis were significantly down-regulated in black sesame. Transcriptome sequencing was performed on sesame seeds from white and black sesame cultivars, and each cultivar contained 3 biological repeats. The clean data of each library were mapped to the S. indicum genome.