Withania somnifera Transcriptome or Gene expression. Withania somnifera

Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal (Family, Solanaceae), is one of the most important medicinal plants synthesizing large number of pharmacologically active secondary metabolites known as withanolides. Though the plant has been characterized in terms of phytochemical profiles as well as pharmaceutical activities, not much is known about the genes responsible for biosynthesis of these compounds. Phytochemical profiling suggests that withanolide biosynthesis may take place differentially in leaf and root tissues as well as in different chemotypes of Withania with differences in the content and/or nature of withanolide moiety. To develop basic understanding about withanolide biosynthesis in different chemotypes, we established transcriptome sequences of leaf and root tissues of NMITLI-118 chemotype using 454 pyrosequencing. The transcriptome data obtained was of 210 and 226 MB with 675691 and 731352 ESTs in leaf and root libraries respectively. Assembly of data yielded 20621 contigs and 63910 singletons in NMITLI-118 leaf and 22438 contigs and 78645 singletons in NMITLI-118 root transcriptomes. Each transcriptome had approximately 52% large contigs with an average length of 921 bps. Each library was annotated using BLASTx against TAIR10, nr and tomato databases. Using established transcriptome, we have identified total 2308 and 3112 SSR markers for leaf and root, which will help in future genetic studies of this valuable medicinal plant.