Data from: "White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) transcriptome assembly and SNP discovery" in Genomic Resources Notes accepted 1 June 2013-31 July 2013

White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are among the most abundant and widespread large mammals in the Americas, comprising up to 38 subspecies ranging from Northern Canada to Peru. Although believed to have high genetic diversity, surprisingly few genomic resources are currently available, despite the species’ ecological and economic importance. White-tailed deer and other cervids throughout central North America are currently being afflicted by chronic wasting disease (CWD), one of the degenerative prion diseases collectively known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Although CWD is of major importance to white-tailed deer management, little is currently known about innate resistance or susceptibility to CWD outside of polymorphisms in the prion protein gene, Prnp, though a recent study using microsatellites suggests that the disease may have additional underlying genetic components. Further association analysis is hindered by low marker density. In this study, we used high-throughput SOLiD sequencing to create novel sequence data for white-tailed deer and identify single-nucleotide polymorphisms, using the pooled blood transcriptomes of six individuals. In total, we generated 14,010 contigs of length ≥ 200 nt, representing 4,104,760 nt of unique sequence data, and we identified 66,596 SNPs. This data represents one of the largest genetic resources currently available for any cervid. We hope it will facilitate future research for population genomics and assist with the identification of genetic factors that underlie disease resistance and other traits relevant for conservation and management.

白尾鹿（Odocoileus virginianus）是美洲地区数量最多、分布最广的大型哺乳动物之一，目前已确认存在多达38个亚种，分布范围北至加拿大北部，南抵秘鲁。尽管学界普遍认为该物种具有较高的遗传多样性，但即便其生态与经济价值显著，目前可获取的基因组学资源却极为有限。
目前，北美中部地区的白尾鹿及其他鹿科动物正饱受慢性消耗性疾病（chronic wasting disease, CWD）的侵扰——该病属于一类被统称为传染性海绵状脑病的退行性朊病毒疾病。尽管CWD对白尾鹿的种群管理至关重要，但目前学界对其感染CWD的先天抗性或易感性的认知仅局限于朊蛋白基因（Prnp）的多态性位点；不过近期一项基于微卫星标记的研究表明，该病的易感性可能存在其他潜在遗传基础。由于分子标记密度较低，进一步的关联分析研究受到了阻碍。
本研究以6只白尾鹿的混合血液转录组为材料，采用高通量SOLiD测序技术生成全新的白尾鹿序列数据，并筛选得到单核苷酸多态性（single-nucleotide polymorphism, SNP）位点。最终共获得14010条长度不低于200 nt的重叠群（contig），总独特序列数据量达4104760 nt，同时筛选得到66596个SNP位点。
该数据集是目前已公开的鹿科动物最大规模遗传资源之一。我们期望本研究生成的数据能够推动后续种群基因组学研究，并助力解析与疾病抗性及其他保护、管理相关性状相关的潜在遗传因子。