Deep sequencing of the Colocasia esculenta transcriptome revealed candidate genes for major metabolic pathways of starch synthesis

• This is the first report of transcriptome sequencing and bioinformatics analysis of taro.
• The high-throughput Illumina HiSeq 2000 sequencing technology was proved to be an efficient and accurate way of de novo assembling.
• Transcript sequences and their annotations obtained in this study provide a valuable resource for investigating specific processes, functions, and pathways in C. esculenta and related species.
• The methods will allow the identification of novel genes involved in secondary metabolite synthesis pathways.

Taro (Colocasia esculenta) is an important crop in Africa, Southeast Asia and the subtropics, as it is used for food and medicine. The aims of this study were to access a large expression datasets of taro and reveal the candidate genes of starch synthesis. As a result, approximately 2.2 Gb sequence data of taro transcriptome were obtained by using Illumina HiSeq 2000 platform and assembled into 52,935 contigs with an average length of 588.5 bp. Sequence similarity analyses against four public databases (NR, GO, KEGG, KOG) found 17,047 contigs that could be annotated with gene descriptions, conserved protein domains, or gene ontology terms. Among the important metabolic pathways, 26 genes related to starch synthesis were validated by RT-PCR. This transcriptome dataset can serve as an important public information platform for further studies in gene expression, genomics, and functional genomic studies in C. esculenta.