Tissue specific long non-coding RNAs are involved in aroma formation of black tea

Abstract With the progress of sequencing technology coupled with in silico approaches, disclosure of long non-coding RNA (lncRNAs) from RNAseq data has become easy and reliable. Till today, no methodical investigation of lncRNAs and their regulatory roles in tea have been studied. In this study, using 170 RNAseq data (˜7157 million reads) of 11 harvestable tissues, 33,400 putative high certainty lncRNAs were discovered, among which 99.76% were found to be putative novel lncRNAs. The expression analysis of lncRNAs from 53 RNAseq data of 7 tissues (axillary bud, a bud and a leaf, a bud and 2 leaves, apical bud and 2 leaves, 2 nd leaf, 4 th leaf, and 6 th leaf) demonstrated their tissue-specific expression. Further, around 1,654 lncRNAs were found to be endogenous target mimics of miRNAs that interacted with 698 mRNAs of tea genome. Based on their target i.e. coding-gene partners by Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) biological pathway showed that 378 lncRNAs are involved in major aroma formation pathway of tea. Present study also provides valuable information to uncover the various molecular functions of lncRNAs that regulate aroma formation of tea.