De Novo Sequencing and Analysis of the Transcriptome of the Wild Eggplant Species Solanum Aculeatissimum in Response to Verticillium dahliae

Eggplant verticillium wilt, caused by Verticillium dahliae, is one of the most severe diseases of eggplant worldwide. Transferring of resistance genes from wild relatives would be valuable for the continued improvements of eggplant. Solanum aculeatissimum, a wild relative of eggplant possessing resistance to verticillium wilt, is potentially useful for genetically enhancing eggplant. To better understand the defense response to V. dahliae, transcriptome analysis of roots from S. aculeatissimum in response to V. dahliae infection was performed. A total of 69,824 all-unigenes were obtained through Illumina/Solexa sequencing. Functional annotations by aligning all-unigenes with public protein databases including NCBI non-redundant protein (NR), Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COG), Swiss-Prot protein, and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) were obtained. The gene expression profiles of S. aculeatissimum infected with V. dahliae were compared to those of non-infected plants, and 11,696 upregulated and 5949 downregulated genes were identified. Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment and metabolic pathway-enrichment analysis were performed. Some V. dahliae-resistant related genes, including putative resistance genes (R-genes), phenylpropanoid pathway-related genes, genes encoding pathogenesis-related proteins (PRs) and transcription factors were identified. Taken together, this is the first transcriptome sequencing of S. aculeatissimum under V. dahliae stress.