Usability of reference-free transcriptome assemblies for detection of differential expression: a case study on Aethionema arabicum dimorphic seeds

摘要

BackgroundRNA-sequencing analysis is increasingly utilized to study gene expression in non-model organisms without sequenced genomes. Aethionema arabicum (Brassicaceae) exhibits seed dimorphism as a bet-hedging strategy – producing both a less dormant mucilaginous (M⁺) seed morph and a more dormant non-mucilaginous (NM) seed morph. Here, we compared de novo and reference-genome based transcriptome assemblies to investigate Ae. arabicum seed dimorphism and to evaluate the reference-free versus -dependent approach for identifying differentially expressed genes (DEGs).