De novo leaf transcriptome of a triploid linalool chemotype of Lippia alba (Mill.) N.E.Br. ex Britton & P. Wilson

Lippia alba (Mill.) N.E.Br. ex Britton & P.Wilson is a well-known folk medicine plant belonging to family Verbenaceae. Despite its pharmacological aspects, biological interest, and intriguing polyploidization system, the molecular network is much less clear. This paper provides a transcriptome of Bushy Matgrass, aiming to shed light on its terpene metabolic pathway, bringing forward the protein structure and phylogeny of important terpene synthases found, such as those responsible for production of geraniol and nerolidol/linalool. A total of 47,498,310 paired-end reads were obtained and 38,096 unigenes generated by de novo assembly, of which 530 were associated with the terpene route. For validation, we submitted linalool-dominant triploid accessions to greenhouse and open field cultivation conditions, followed by RT-qPCR analysis using key terpene-related genes discovered in the NGS trial. Furthermore, we identified an abundance of transcription factors mRNA linked to terpene and stress, suggesting an epigenetic link between ploidy and chemotype. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive transcriptomic analysis of Lippia L. genus and may serve as a baseline for further molecular studies.