Transcriptome profiling for seed abortion in Ponkan (Citrus reticulata)

Seed developmental arrest is one of the early phenotypes of seed abortion. However, the molecular mechanism underlying seed developmental arrest of citrus is still unclear. In this study, laser capture microdissection (LCM) was used to accurately divide the seeds of seedless Ponkan ‘Huagan No.4’ (Citrus reticulata) (HG) and seeded Ponkan ‘Egan No.1’ (Citrus reticulata) (EG) into nucellus and integument/seed coat tissues. The captured tissues were used for subsequent RNA-seq. Moreover, single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing was used to generate full-length transcripts of EG, which were used as reference transcripts for RNA-seq. These data can be utilized to analyse the causes of citrus seedlessness formation and the molecular regulatory network in the process of seed abortion. Twelve samples of three key developmental stages and two tissues in HG and EG were collected. Three biological replicates were set for each sample.