A comprehensive collection of transcriptome data to support life cycle analysis of the poplar rust fungus Melampsora larici-populina

Melampsora larici-populina is an obligate biotrophic plant pathogen responsible for the poplar rust disease. This fungus belongs to the taxonomical order Pucciniales and exhibits a complex heteroecious and macrocyclic life cycle, i.e. it has the capacity to infect two unrelated host plants, larch and poplar, and to form five distinct spore types through the year. The M. larici-populina genome has been sequenced and annotated in 2011 and since, different transcriptomic analyses were conducted at different stages with oligoarrays and later on with RNA-Seq covering most of its life cycle. Here, we collected published transcriptome data for the poplar rust fungus, transposed them for the version 2 of the genome now available at the Joint Genome Institute Mycocosm website and performed normalization of different oligoarray datasets on one hand, and of RNA-Seq on the other hand. We report a comprehensive normalized dataset for this fungus, made available for the community, which allows life cycle transcriptomics analysis.