Sweet pitaya fruit peel transcriptome analysis

Cactus (Cactaceae) are plants distributed across arid regions of America with ecological and economic value. One trait that leads the cactus to survive in desert ecosystems is its cuticle, which limits water loss in dry conditions. In fruits, the cuticle regulates water loss during development and postharvest. Nevertheless, the mechanism of cuticle biosynthesis has yet to be described for cacti. Stenocereus thurberi is a cactus endemic from the Sonoran Desert, which produces a fruit named sweet pitaya. Genomic and transcriptomic data from S. thurberi published in databases are scarce. This study reports the characterization of the sweet pitaya peel transcriptome. The assembly transcriptome reached 174,449 transcripts with an N50 value of 2,110 bp and 85.4% completeness. Of the total transcripts, 70.07% were classified as coding RNA, and about 29.9% were classified as long non-coding RNA. The information generated will help further analyze the molecular mechanism of cuticle biosynthesis and another relevant metabolic pathway in S. thurberi and other cactus species.