Leaf transcriptome sequencing of Lolium multiflorum/Festuca arundinacea introgression forms exposed to drought

The applied here two introgression forms of Lolium multiflorum/Festuca arundinacea, with contrasting level of drought tolerance: high drought tolerant (HDT) and low drought tolerant (LDT), have been used for the RNA-seq approach at two time points: in the control conditions (C) and the advanced stage of drought (D3). The plants represented individuals of BC5 population were obtained after 5 rounds of backcrossing of L. multiflorum (4x) x F. arundinacea (6x) hybrid backcrossed to L. multiflorum (4x) cultivar. Plants growing in the pots were exposed to 10-day water withholding in the environmental chamber. Total RNA extraction from leaf samples was performed using the RNeasy Plant Mini Kit (Qiagen). RNA integrity was evaluated using an Agilent Technologies 2100 bioanalyzer. The libraries were sequenced on the BGISEQ-500 platform (BGI, Shenzhen, China). The goals of the analysis were as follows: (i) de novo transcriptome assembly, (ii) transcript abundance calculation using RSEM tool and identification of differentially expressed genes linked to drought stress response and (iii) functional annotation of transcripts based on UniProt database.