Xenoturbella bocki transcriptome

Xenoturbella bocki is an enigmatic marine organism possible representing in its organization one of the most basal lineages of Deuterostomes. Thus, Xenoturbella is one of crucial and novel models to study the evolution of animal organization and the origin of chordates in particular. However, nothing is known about the molecular organization of this organism. Here, using pyrosequencing approach we performed deep transcriptome analysis of Xenoturbella. Specifically, we developed a reduced representation sequencing method that can detect low abundant transcripts. Our method greatly reduces the amount of sequencing with more accurate quantification. Basically, sequential addition of adaptors paired with controlled digestion of cDNA generates a one transcript on read type of analysis. Combined 5’ with 3’ targeted libraries produces greater coverage of individual transcripts and high quality assembly. Our initial analysis allowed us to identify more than 20,000 of novel transcripts including major components of signal transduction pathways and a diversity of transcription factors. The developed molecular resources provide critical information for future analysis of the origin and evolution of major animal lineages.