Full-length transcriptome analysis reveals candidate genes involved in terpenoid biosynthesis in Artemisia argyi

Artemisia argyi is an important medicinal plant widely utilized for moxibustion heat therapy in China. The terpenoid biosynthesis process in A. argyi is speculated to play a key role in conferring its medicinal value. Yet the molecular mechanism underlying terpenoid biosynthesis remains unclear, in part because the reference genome of A. argyi is unavailable. Moreover, the full-length transcriptome of A. argyi has yet to be sequenced. Therefore, in this study de novo transcriptome sequencing of A. argyi’s root, stem and leaf tissues was performed to obtain those candidate genes related to terpenoid biosynthesis, by combining the PacBio single-molecule real-time (SMRT) and Illumina sequencing NGS platforms. These respectively generated more than 55.4 Gb of sequencing data and 108,846 full-length reads (non-chimeric) were generated by the Illumina and PacBio platform, respectively. Then, 53,043 consensus isoforms were clustered and used to represent 36,820 non-redundant transcripts, of wh...