Panax quinquefolius Transcriptome or Gene expression

American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius L.) is a perennial understory herb from the Araliaceae family native to the eastern forests of North America. It is one of the most extensively used medicinal plants both in East Asia and the West. Despite the commercial and medicinal importance of American ginseng, there is little genomics research on this species. In this study, we produced more than 200,000 high-quality reads from a cDNA library constructed from the roots of American ginseng, using the Roche 454-GS FLX Titanium platform. We will focus on uncovering genes responsible for the secondary metabolite biosynthesis and the transcriptional regulation, and development of the genetic markers.