RNA-Seq analysis of two elite lines of Withania somnifera to evaluate potential of heterosis

Abstract

Metabolite targeted breeding is one of the prime need in Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) to meet its fast growing demand at domestic and international level owing to its vast spectral pharmaceutical potential.Till date only scanty breeding efforts exists majority being introductions or selections from the wilds/landraces through which active bio constituent increase is limited. Hybridization based heterotic positive QTL alleles can be introgressed in a fine quality good agronomic genetic base using marker assisted selection. Investigations under this study generated a large resource of Withania specific genomic microsatellite markers and SNP through RNA seq. Using an RNA-seq approach, the expression of 101245 unigenes were quantified in parents .The expression levels of 30% of transcripts differed between parents, a majority of which had more than 1.5 fold-changes.RNA seq will help to decipher the Withanolide biosynthesis pathway and SNP responsible for functional polymorphism in pathway genes and hence predicting the potential of heterosis.