Distinct transcriptome of moso bamboo in the phase transition from vegetative to reproductive growth

Bamboo represents the only major lineage of grasses that is native to forests and is one of the most important non-timber forest products in the world. Moso bamboo is a large woody bamboo that has ecological, economic and cultural value in Asia and accounts for ~70% of the total bamboo growth area (Peng et al., 2013). In the aspect of epigenetics of Moso bamboo,the total genomic DNA methylation rates in Moso bamboo at different chronological ages were significantly different (Yuan et al., 2014). Those show that the flowering of Moso bamboo are closely related to epigenetic modification. However, DNA methylation in single base resolution has never been reported in moso bamboo. In this study, leaves from three-week bamboo, one-year bamboo, flower in next year bamboo, flowering bamboo and Flower florets was used for bisulfite sequencing (BS-seq), and RNA-Seq. Genome-wide methylation profile and gene expression analysis were constructed to reveal the factors to regualte the phase transition from vegetative to reproductive growth in moso bamboo. In this study, leaves from three-week bamboo, one-year bamboo, flower in next year bamboo, flowering bamboo and flower florets was used for RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) which covered the phase transition from vegetative to reproductive growth in moso bamboo.