Saccharum Spontaneum Gene Catalog

Saccharum spontaneum plays an essential role in sugarcane breeding by the introgression of abiotic and biotic resistance. In the lignocellulosic ethanol context, S. spontaneum is even more important: this species has thinner, less sucrose content and fibrous culm, high tillering rates, abiotic stress resistance and high biomass production - essential features of a parental line for energy cane breeding. Despite the importance of this species, molecular genetic resources remain limited, and no genome reference is available for the Saccharum genus. Here, we developed a gene catalog of S. spontaneum (US85-1008) with Illumina high throughput DNA sequencing and mRNA expression profile in different tissues. DNA libraries of S. spontaneum (180 and 400 bp of insert) were sequenced and produced around of 60 million of reads. They were assembled based on the 32.748 locus of Sorghum bicolor. As a result, 59.644 contigs (> 500 bp) of S. spontaneum were generated (1.94 contigs per locus) with medium size of 2.020 bp. To integrate our data and the data available in public databases we constructed the ‘Saccharum Database’. To validate the assembly and perform a global gene expression profile, RNA sample of 6 tissues (leaf, node, internode, root, apical meristem and lateral buds) were submitted for Illumina sequencing, producing over 118 Gb of mRNA sequences, which will be useful for identifying gene expression in specific tissues and Saccharum specific genes. These large-scale data of the S. spontaneum produced is an important source for biotechnology tools to improve the energy cane breeding.