Lotus Flower-Bud Transcriptome or Gene expression. Nelumbo nucifera

Flower-lotus with many attractive floral characteristics has been studied and discussed the most. These characteristics are used as the standards of the classification in most cases, and always attracted the attention of lotus breeders on improvement program because of associating with ornamental and economic values of lotus. However, molecular mechanisms underlying the formation of these attractive floral features still remain largely unknown. Transcriptome sequencing technique has been established as an efficient approach for gene discovery and expression pattern identification. For some plants, a lot of important genes involved in plant critical metabolisms have been successfully identified by this technique. In the study, mass sequence data obtained from the deep sequencing of a mixed flower-bud cDNA pool from three individuals of N. nucifera provide a platform to comprehensively understand the processes of flower formation and development at the molecular level, and will greatly facilitate the genetic improvement of ornamental characteristics and the directive molecular breeding for lotus in the future. Overall design: A mixed cDNA pool from young flower-buds (35-40mm in length) of three accessions of N. nucifera were used for deep sequencing using 454 GS-FLX Titanium.