Digital gene expression (DGE) of PaWB phytoplasma-infected Paulownia witches

Here we performed a transcriptomic study on PaWB phytoplasma-infected Paulownia sp. using Solexa/Illumina’s high-throughput digital gene expression (DGE) system. 4 DGE libraries (from 2 virus-infected samples and 2 healthy samples) were constructed, and the gene expression variations between the PaWB phytoplasma-infected (diseased) sample and the corresponding healthy sample were compared. Thousands of differentially expressed genes were obtained by the comparison, and KEGG pathway analysis of these genes suggested that many biological processes were responded to PaWB infection. To investigate the response of Paulownia sp. to PaWB infection, we collected four samples in two groups, namely the tissue cultured group (containing healthy sample TH and diseased sample TD) and field-grown group (containing healthy sample FH and diseased sample FD). Four individual tag libraries from these samples were constructed in parallel. For the gene expression analysis, the digital gene expression (DGE) data of diseased sample were compared to that of healthy sample in each group to obtain the gene expression variations.