Analysis of ESTs from the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) cv. Sukary, an elite variety.

Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were generated from a normalized cDNA library of the date palm cv. Sukary to uncover the transcriptomic profile of this well-known high-quality variety in Saudi Arabia. The RNA was isolated from leaves and developed fruits at different stages from a single Sukary female tree. Total RNA was pooled and the normalized cDNA were cloned into a pAL17.3 cloning vector. The positives clones were sequenced using BigDye® Terminator chemistry. A total of 6943 high quality ESTs were generated, out of which 6671 ESTs were submitted to Gene bank dbEST (LIBEST_028537). The generated ESTs were assembled into 6362 unigenes, consisting of 494 (14.4%) contigs and 5868 (84.53%) singletons. The functional annotation showed that the majority of the ESTs were associated with binding (44%), catalytic (40%), transporter (5%) and structural molecular activities (5%). The Blastx results showed that 73% of the unigenes have significant similarities to known plant genes and 27% were novel. The latter could be of particular interest in date palm genetic studies. Further analysis showed that some ESTs were categorized as stress/defense and fruit development related genes. These newly generated ESTs could significantly enhance date palm EST databases that are in the public domain and are available to scientists and researchers across the globe.