Full-length Transcriptome Analysis Reveals Candidate Genes Involved in Terpenoid Biosynthesis in Artemisia argyi

Artemisia argyi is an important medicinal plant widely utilized for moxibustion heat therapy in China. Yet the molecular mechanism underlying terpenoid biosynthesis remains unclear, in part because the reference genome of A. argyi is unavailable. Moreover, the full-length transcriptome of Artemisia argyi has yet to be sequenced. Therefore, in this study de novo transcriptome sequencing of root, stem and leaf tissues of Artemisia argyi was performed to obtain those candidate genes related to terpenoid biosynthesis, by combining the PacBio single-molecule real-time and Illumina sequencing NGS platforms. These respectively generated more than 55.4 Gb of sequencing data and 108 846 full-length reads were generated by the Illumina and PacBio platform, respectively.