Annotation of Tissue-Specific Transcriptome Data from Rabbiteye Blueberry (Vaccinium virgatum)

Extensive genomic work has been done on Vaccinium corymbosum, both diploid and tetraploid, but not much has been done with rabbiteye blueberry, or Vaccinium virgatum (syn V. ashei), which is hexaploid.  Rabbiteye blueberries are native to the Southeastern United States and cultivars are typically grown from North Carolina south to Florida and west to Texas for commercial blueberry production.  In the Southeast, rabbiteye blueberry plants exhibit superior environmental tolerance and have fewer disease and insect concerns that highbush varieties (Vaccinium corymbosum), although some southern highbush (Vaccinium corymbosum X Vaccinium darrowii ) contain V. virgatum in their genetic backgrounds. Our study included five V. virgatum cultivars; TifBlue, Climax, PowderBlue, Austin, and Premier. Tissues were collected from clonally propagated plants for each cultivar at multiple developmental stages including buds, berries, leaves, and roots. Tissue was also collected from root and leaves during drought treatments. First sequencing results were produced for growth stages of ‘Premier’ using Nextera kits and Illumina instruments.  Transcriptome data were annotated using existing genomic resources for blueberry.