Rhizophora mucronata Transcriptome or Gene expression. Rhizophora mucronata

Soil salinization drastically reduces irrigated agricultural land right across the world, thus negatively influences crop growth and yield. The situation stipulates agricultural biotechnology to meet an ever increasing demand in food production by means of genetically modified cultivars having increased water use efficiency and salt tolerance. Mangroves being facultative halophytes and potential stress adaptors can serve as a gene pool of salt tolerant gene candidates for the development of GM crops. Rhizophora mucronata, a prevalent mangrove variety in India is reported to defy saline stress up to 40 parts per thousand, but the genome or transcriptome behind is yet to be investigated. Here, the first ever delineation of the Rhizophora mucronata genes that are being actively expressed at a given time, with the exception of transcriptional attenuation is proposed. The current transcriptome provides a useful functionally relevant subset of the Rhizophora mucronata genome including those genes involved in the stress tolerance mechanisms and also constitutes a valuable resource for further analyses.