De novo next-generation sequencing, assembling and annotation of Arachis hypogaea L. Spanish botanical type whole plant transcriptome

Peanut is a major agronomic crop within the legume family and an important source of plant oil, proteins, vitamins, and minerals for human consumption, as well as animal feed, bioenergy, and health products. Peanut genomic research effort lags that of other legumes of economic importance, mainly due to the shortage of essential genomic infrastructure, tools, resources, and the complexity of the peanut genome. This is a pioneering study that explored the peanut Spanish Group whole plant transcriptome and culminated in developing unigenes database. The study applied modern technologies, such as, normalization and next-generation sequencing. It overall sequenced 8,308,655,800 nucleotides and generated 26,048 unigenes amongst which 12,302 were annotated and 8,817 were characterized. The remainder, 13,746 (52.77 %) unigenes, had unknown functions. These results will be applied as the reference transcriptome sequences for expanded transcriptome sequencing of the remaining three peanut botanical types (Valencia, Runner, and Virginia), which is currently in progress, RNA-seq, exome identification, and genomic markers development. It will also provide important tools and resources for other legumes and plant species genomic research.