Ginkgo biloba, a dioecious plant known as a living fossil, is an ancient gymnosperm that stands distinct from other gymnosperms and angiosperms. Ginkgo biloba var. epiphylla (G. biloba var. epiphylla), with ovules borne on the leaf blade, is an unusual germplasm derived from G. biloba. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are post-transcriptional gene regulators that play critical roles in diverse biological and metabolic processes. Currently, little is known about the miRNAs involved in the key stage of partly epiphyllous ovule germination in G. biloba var. epiphylla. Two small RNA libraries constructed from epiphyllous ovule leaves and normal leaves of G. biloba var. epiphylla were sequenced on an Illumina/Solexa platform. A total of 82 miRNA sequences belonging to 23 families and 53 putative novel miRNAs were identified in the two libraries. Differential expression analysis showed that 25 conserved and 21 novel miRNAs were differentially expressed between epiphyllous ovule leaves and normal leaves. The expression patterns of partially differentially expressed miRNAs and the transcript levels of their predicted target genes were validated by quantitative real time RT-PCR. All the expression profiles of the 21 selected miRNAs were similar to those detected by Solexa deep sequencing. Additionally, the transcript levels of almost all the putative target genes of 9 selected miRNAs were opposite to those of the corresponding miRNAs. The putative target genes of the differentially expressed miRNAs were annotated with Gene Ontology terms related to reproductive process, metabolic process and responding to stimulus. This work presents a broad range of small RNA transcriptome data obtained from epiphyllous ovule and normal leaves of G. biloba var. epiphylla, which may provide insights into the miRNA-mediated regulation in the epiphyllous ovule germination process.

In plants, sex determination is a comprehensive process of correlated events, which involves genes that are differentially and/or specifically expressed in distinct developmental phases. Exploring gene expression profiles from different sex types will contribute to fully understanding sex determination in plants. In this study, we conducted RNA-sequencing of female and male buds (FB and MB) as well as ovulate strobilus and staminate strobilus (OS and SS) of Ginkgo biloba to gain insights into the genes potentially related to sex determination in this species. Approximately 60 Gb of clean reads were obtained from eight cDNA libraries. De novo assembly of the clean reads generated 108,307 unigenes with an average length of 796 bp. Among these unigenes, 51,953 (47.97%) had at least one significant match with a gene sequence in the public databases searched. A total of 4,709 and 9,802 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified in MB vs. FB and SS vs. OS, respectively. Genes involved in plant hormone signal and transduction as well as those encoding DNA methyltransferase were found to be differentially expressed between different sex types. Their potential roles in sex determination of G. biloba were discussed. Pistil-related genes were expressed in male buds while anther-specific genes were identified in female buds, suggesting that dioecism in G. biloba was resulted from the selective arrest of reproductive primordia. High correlation of expression level was found between the RNA-Seq and quantitative real-time PCR results. The transcriptome resources that we generated allowed us to characterize gene expression profiles and examine differential expression profiles, which provided foundations for identifying functional genes associated with sex determination in G. biloba.

We combined mRNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) with bulked segregant analysis (BSA) to fine map significant agronomic trait genes by developing polymorphism molecular markers at the transcriptome level. RNA-Seq data provides BSA with genotype information in RNA Pool to screen out linked genes (low in false positives) after data analysis, and the efficiency of development and verification of the linked polymorphism marker is greatly improved. This combined approach (named BSR) has been applied to plant transcriptome sequencing in sunflower, corn, wheat, and Arabidopsis thaliana. Ginkgo biloba is a deciduous tree that belongings to the Ginkgoaceae family and has been recognized as a “living fossil”. It has important economic and cultural value in China. The lifetime of G. biloba is very long, and its growth is relatively slow. Studies have shown that geographic latitude, temperature, and soil nutrient influence the growth of G. biloba; however, little is known about growth-related genes. In this study, transcriptome sequencing of high growth (GD) and low growth (BD) samples of G. biloba half-sib families was performed. After assembling the clean reads, 601 differential expression genes were detected and 513 of them were assigned functional annotations. Single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis identified SNPs associated with 119 genes in the GD and BD groups; 58 of these genes were annotated. This study provides molecular level data that could be used for seed selection of high growth G biloba half-sib families for future breeding programs.