De novo assembly and annotation of the Acropora gemmifera transcriptome

Stony corals from the genus Acropora are widely distributed, important reef-builders and have become increasingly utilized for investigating links between genetics and spawning behaviour. We assembled and annotated a composite transcriptome from Acropora gemmifera using Illumina HiSeq2500 analysis of two libraries from different lunar and solar phases to identify genes that have potential functional roles in reproductive-related traits. A total of 31.6 million combined raw reads were assembled using Trinity and built into 104,000 contigs. Functional gene annotation was performed using dammit, Gene Ontology (GO), KOG (WebMGA) and KEGG pathway analyses (Kaas). This resource will be valuable for researchers studying gene expression patterns in coral reproductive cycles and evolution of the genus Acropora.