高羊茅氮胁迫条件下转录组学测序　De novo sequencing, assembly, and analysis of the tall fescue leaf transcriptome in response to nitrogen stress：
Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) is one of the most important pasture grasses in the world. Understanding how genes respond to nitrogen starvation is essential for formulating approaches to manipulate genes for improved efficiency of nitrogen use. However, little is known at the transcriptomic and genomic level about nitrogen starvation in tall fescue. Here, we obtained more than 60 million sequencing reads from tall fescue seedlings under nitrogen starvation using Illumina sequencing technology, with a total of 299,761 contigs representing 72,666 unigenes (with a 676-nt mean length). Differential expression analysis revealed that a total of 13,112 unigenes were responsive to nitrogen starvation, with 2,346 up regulated unigenes and 10,766 down regulated unigenes. GO annotation and KEGG pathway mapping revealed that the unigenes participated in diverse biological functions and processes, including metabolic process, proteasome, transcription, apoptosis, and immune response. The differentially expressed genes selected from transcriptome profiling were confirmed by quantitative real time PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis. Our data provided comprehensive gene expression information at the transcriptional level and the first insight into the molecular mechanisms of nitrogen starvation in tall fescue. These findings may be helpful for breeding programs aimed at improving the nitrogen use efficiency in tall fescue.