Transcriptome profiling of abiotic responses to heat, cold, salt, and osmotic stress of Capsicum annuum L.

We sought to investigate the scope of transcriptome analyses of peppers subjected to four major environment stresses (heat, cold, drought, and salinity). For this, at the six-true-leaf stage, plants were subjected to a temperature of 10°C or 40°C to mimic cold or heat stress, respectively. For salinity stress, plants were treated with 50 mL of a 400 mM NaCl solution; for osmotic stress, the peppers were treated with 50 mL of 400 mM mannitol. For RNA-seq library construction, the third or fourth leaves from four plants were harvested per replicate at 0, 3, 6, 12, 24, and 72 h after treatment. A total of 204.68 Gb of transcriptome data were generated using transcriptome analysis pipelines consisting of quality control, quantification, and differential gene expression analyses. A hierarchical clustering of gene expression data were used to infer the quality of the RNA-seq data and the characteristics of samples in each treatment. The extensive transcriptome data obtained will provide valuable information for future studies of crops exposed to abiotic stresses. RNA-Seq profiling of abiotic responses to heat, cold, salt, and osmotic stress in Capsicum annuum L. leaves