First insights into the transcriptome and development of new genomic tools of a widespread circum-Mediterranean tree species, Pinus halepensis Mill.

Pinus halepensis is a relevant conifer species for studying adaptive responses to drought and fire regimes in the Mediterranean region. Deciphering the molecular basis of Aleppo pine to the Mediterranean environment is therefore needed. In this study we performed Illumina next-generation sequencing of two phenotypically divergent Pinus halepensis accessions with the aims of i) characterizing the transcriptome through Illumina RNA-Seq of two accessions, phenotypically divergent for adaptive traits link to fire adaptation and drought, ii) performing a functional annotation of the assembled transcriptome, iii) identifying genes with accelerated evolutionary rates, iv) studying the expression levels of the annotated genes, and v) developing gene-based markers for population genomic and association genetic studies. The assembled transcriptome consisted in 48,629 contigs and covered about 54.6 Mbp. The comparison of P. halepensis transcripts to Picea sitchensis protein-coding sequences result...