TY - JOUR AU - Galla, Giulio AU - Vogel, Heiko AU - Sharbel, Timothy F. AU - Barcaccia, Gianni PY - 2015 DA - 2015/03/31 TI - De novo sequencing of the Hypericum perforatum L. flower transcriptome to identify potential genes that are related to plant reproduction sensu lato JO - BMC Genomics SP - 254 VL - 16 IS - 1 AB - St. John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum L.) is a medicinal plant that produces important metabolites with antidepressant and anticancer activities. Recently gained biological information has shown that this species is also an attractive model system for the study of a naturally occurring form of asexual reproduction called apomixis, which allows cloning plants through seeds. In aposporic gametogenesis, one or multiple somatic cells belonging to the ovule nucellus change their fate by dividing mitotically and developing functionally unreduced embryo sacs by mimicking sexual gametogenesis. Although the introduction of apomixis into agronomically important crops could have revolutionary implications for plant breeding, the genetic control of this mechanism of seed formation is still not well understood for most of the model species investigated so far. We used Roche 454 technology to sequence the entire H. perforatum flower transcriptome of whole flower buds and single flower verticils collected from obligately sexual and unrelated highly or facultatively apomictic genotypes, which enabled us to identify RNAs that are likely exclusive to flower organs (i.e., sepals, petals, stamens and carpels) or reproductive strategies (i.e., sexual vs. apomictic). SN - 1471-2164 UR - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-015-1439-y DO - 10.1186/s12864-015-1439-y ID - Galla2015 ER -