<i>De novo</i> assembly length distribution.

<p>Histogram of the sequence-length distribution of transcripts, unigenes and unigenes with significant BLASTx hits in the NCBI nr database.</p

List of genes comprising the cellulose and lignin pathways found among <i>P. maximum</i> unigenes.

<p>List of genes comprising the cellulose and lignin pathways found among <i>P. maximum</i> unigenes.</p

Gene ontology classification of <i>Panicum maximum</i> unigenes.

<p>Distribution of the GO categories assigned to the <i>P. maximum</i> transcriptome. Transcripts were classified into three categories: cellular components, molecular functions and biological processes.</p

<i>De Novo</i> Transcriptome Assembly for the Tropical Grass <i>Panicum maximum</i> Jacq

<div><p>Guinea grass (<i>Panicum maximum</i> Jacq.) is a tropical African grass often used to feed beef cattle, which is an important economic activity in Brazil. Brazil is the leader in global meat exportation because of its exclusively pasture-raised bovine herds. Guinea grass also has potential uses in bioenergy production due to its elevated biomass generation through the C₄ photosynthesis pathway. We generated approximately 13 Gb of data from Illumina sequencing of <i>P. maximum</i> leaves. Four different genotypes were sequenced, and the combined reads were assembled <i>de novo</i> into 38,192 unigenes and annotated; approximately 63% of the unigenes had homology to other proteins in the NCBI non-redundant protein database. Functional classification through COG (Clusters of Orthologous Groups), GO (Gene Ontology) and KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) analyses showed that the unigenes from Guinea grass leaves are involved in a wide range of biological processes and metabolic pathways, including C₄ photosynthesis and lignocellulose generation, which are important for cattle grazing and bioenergy production. The most abundant transcripts were involved in carbon fixation, photosynthesis, RNA translation and heavy metal cellular homeostasis. Finally, we identified a number of potential molecular markers, including 5,035 microsatellites (SSRs) and 346,456 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to characterize the complete leaf transcriptome of <i>P. maximum</i> using high-throughput sequencing. The biological information provided here will aid in gene expression studies and marker-assisted selection-based breeding research in tropical grasses.</p></div

Summary of putative SNPs found in <i>P. maximum</i> unigenes.

<p>Summary of putative SNPs found in <i>P. maximum</i> unigenes.</p

The 10 most abundant transcripts found in the Guinea grass leaf transcriptome.

<p>The 10 most abundant transcripts found in the Guinea grass leaf transcriptome.</p

Summary of putative SSRs found in <i>P. maximum</i> unigenes.

<p>Summary of putative SSRs found in <i>P. maximum</i> unigenes.</p

Summary of assembled transcripts and unigenes of <i>P. maximum</i> leaves.

<p>Summary of assembled transcripts and unigenes of <i>P. maximum</i> leaves.</p

Shared and unique putative SNPs found in <i>Panicum maximum</i> unigenes.

<p>Shared and unique putative SNPs found in <i>Panicum maximum</i> unigenes.</p

Mapped QTLs for height and girth growth during the summer and winter seasons.

(1)<p>LG indicate linkage group and R² is a phenotype variation.</p>(2)<p>To detect a QTL, a threshold value for the LOD Score was obtained based on 1,000 permutations, and these values were similar for all of the traits (3.74 for SH, 3.71 for WH, 3.85 for TH, 3.81 for SG, 3.83 for WG and 3.73 for TG).</p