Comparative genomic analysis of 1047 completely sequenced cDNAs from an Arabidopsis-related model halophyte, Thellungiella halophila

Background: Thellungiella halophila (also known as T. salsuginea) is a model halophyte with a small size, short life cycle, and small genome. Thellungiella genes exhibit a high degree of sequence identity with Arabidopsis genes (90% at the cDNA level). We previously generated a full-length enriched cDNA library of T. halophila from various tissues and from whole plants treated with salinity, chilling, freezing stress, or ABA. We determined the DNA sequences of 20 000 cDNAs at both the 5'- and 3' ends, and identified 9569 distinct genes. Results: Here, we completely sequenced 1047 Thellungiella full-length cDNAs representing abiotic-stress-related genes, transcription factor genes, and protein phosphatase 2C genes. The predicted coding sequences, 5'-UTRs, and 3'-UTRs were compared with those of orthologous genes from Arabidopsis for length, sequence similarity, and structure. The 5'-UTR sequences of Thellungiella and Arabidopsis orthologs shared a significant level of similarity, although the motifs were rearranged. While examining the stress-related Thellungiella coding sequences, we found a short splicing variant of T. halophila salt overly sensitive 1 (ThSOS1), designated ThSOS1S. ThSOS1S contains the transmembrane domain of ThSOS1 but lacks the C-terminal hydrophilic region. The expression level of ThSOS1S under normal growth conditions was higher than that of ThSOS1. We also compared the expression levels of Na (+)-transport-system genes between Thellungiella and Arabidopsis by using full-length cDNAs from each species as probes. Several genes that play essential roles in Na+ excretion, compartmentation, and diffusion (SOS1, SOS2, NHX1, and HKT1) were expressed at higher levels in Thellungiella than in Arabidopsis. Conclusions: The full-length cDNA sequences obtained in this study will be essential for the ongoing annotation of the Thellungiella genome, especially for further improvement of gene prediction. Moreover, they will enable us to find splicing variants such as ThSOS1S (AB562331).