Indentification of salt tolerant genes by RNA-Seq in red pitaya

Pitaya (Hylocereus polyrhizus) fruit is a high-value and functional food, and is widely planted in Southeast Asia. The molecular mechanism of red pitaya against salt stress is poorly understood. Here, RNA-seq was used to de novo assemble and characterize the transcriptomic profiles of red pitaya in response to salt stress. Transcriptome sequencing yielded 20 - 25 million reads for the roots after 450 mM NaCl treatment. The average sequence length in the de novo assembly (total 73,589 transcripts) is 1,308 bp with a range from 200 bp to 22,390 bp. 26,878 unique transcripts were successfully matched to 13,519 Swiss-prot proteins by BLAST.