Thunbergia invasiveness

Invasive plant species represent a major ecological and economic challenge worldwide, as their success is often associated with unique genetic and molecular traits that confer competitive advantages under diverse environmental conditions. Understanding the genetic basis of these processes is essential for predicting invasion potential, managing ecological risks, and identifying candidate genes relevant for agriculture and ecosystem conservation. We generated and analyzed de novo transcriptomes of Thunbergia alata and Thunbergia grandiflora, two species of the Acanthaceae family with contrasting invasive behavior. By comparing gene expression profiles, we aimed to identify differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with key biological processes such as morphological development and plasticity, reproduction, stress response and detoxification, secondary metabolism, photosynthesis, substance transport, and gene regulation. Each transcriptome corresponds to a developmental stage and a tissue type for T. alata (early-vegetative, early-reproductive, late-vegetative, late-reproductive, and mix), for T. grandiflora, the transcriptomes were classified only by their tissue type (vegetative, reproductive, mix).