De novo Transcriptome Sequencing of the Drought Stress-Responsive Genes in Haloxylon persicum (Bunge ex Boiss & Buhse) an endangered Native Plant Species of UAE. Haloxylon persicum cultivar:Haloxylon

Haloxylon persicum is an endangered desert plant species which survive under extreme environmental conditions. In the present study we focused on transcriptome analysis of H. persicum to understand the molecular mechanism associated with drought tolerance in desert plants. Two different period of PEG induced drought stress (48 h and 72h) was imposed on H. persicum under invitro condition, which resulted 18 million reads, subsequently assembled by de novo method with more than 8000 transcripts in each drought treatment. The N50 value was 1437, 1467, 1524 for the control sample, 48 h samples and 72 h samples respectively. The GO and KEGG analysis resulted in enrichment of MAPK and plant hormone signal transduction pathways under drought condition. The differential gene expression analysis (DGEs) revealed significant changes in the expression pattern between the control and treated samples. The DGE analysis displayed differential expression of 1153 transcripts in all the three treatments. The present study will provide a greater insight into the fundamental transcriptome reprogramming of the desert plants under drought stress. The identified DGEs and pathway