Identification of drought stress genes expressed in Jatropha curcas by using RNA sequencing

As a drought-tolerance plant, Jatropha curcas can be cultivated in a critical and marginal environment with a low level of fertility or a dry environment. In addition, J. curcas is also a potential non-edible oil producer plant. Thus, the characterization of genes that are linked to drought response is a useful material for breeding to improve the drought tolerance in J. curcas. In this experiment, we used RNA sequencing to identify drought stress-related genes that are expressed in wild J. curcas. We assembled the transcripts and obtained a total of 35,675 transcripts, where 29,372 transcripts were annotated with blastx. We then further identified 70 drought stress-related genes that are expressed in wild J. curcas. We also identified the SSR region in the transcripts that can be used for molecular-assisted breeding.