Transcriptome sequencing and characterization for Kappaphycus alvarezii.

The transcriptome ofKappaphycus alvareziiwas profiled using high-throughput Solexa paired-end sequencing technology. A total of 61 million sequencing reads was generated by filtering the low-quality reads, and 28 701 unigenes with a mean length of 901 bp were obtained based onde novoassembly. In similarity alignments against the NCBI non-redundant protein sequence (NR) database, Swissprot database, Cluster of Orthologous Groups (COG) database, Gene ontology (GO) database, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) database, 11 996 (41.79%) unigenes were identified with significant hits (E-value < 10−5) against existing genes. Functional annotation with the KEGG pathway database identified 8975 unigenes and mapped to 125 pathways. Through functional enrichment analysis of the genes with a higher expression value than the average RPKM (reads per kilobase per million reads), we found that some important pathways were highly expressed. The substantial number of transcript sequences ofK. alvareziiprovides a valuable resource for potential gene identification and comparative genomic studies. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]