Transcriptome sequencing of Ilex x 'Nellie R. Stevens' and its yellow leaf mutant

Ilex x ‘Whoa Nellie’ is a yellow leaf (YT) mutant of I. x ‘Nellie R. Stevens’ (WT), an important ornamental woody species. However, the molecular mechanism of the YT mutant remains unknown. Therefore，we compared yellow-colored mutant leaves and normal green leaves in transcriptomic terms. Our study contributed to uncovering molecular mechanisms underlying yellow leaf mutaion and provided a reference for the application of leaf color mutants. Total RNA was isolated from green leaves of WT and golden leaves of YT using the NEBNext® Ultra™ Plant RNA Extraction Kit (TaKaRa, Dalian, China). Three biological replicates were analyzed for each RNA sample.