All This Turf Sequence Data, Now What?.

There is growing interest in applying next generation sequencing strategies to study turfgrass species.  Next generation sequencing provides a cost effective way of generating significant amounts of data when little upfront genetic information is available.  Experiments were conducted to develop genetic markers and identify genes that confer gender specificity or disease resistance in Buchloë dactyloides (Nutt.) Engelm. (buffalograss).  Genes were annotated based on gene ontology and several previously reported flowering genes were identified from the gender study and 506 defense response genes were identified that appear to contribute to B. dactyloides resistance to leaf spot disease.  B. dactyloides sequence data was compared to data from other in-house turfgrass next generation sequencing studies, which included Agrostis canina, A. stolonifera, A. capillaris, Danthonia spicata, and Poa pratensis, along with turfgrass samples Festuca rubra, Lolium perenne, and F. arundinacea from the Short Read Archive National Center for Biotechnology Information database.  Sequencing reads of each species were assembled and based on the nature of the sequencing study used to generate the data, genomic or transcriptomic comparisons were made among sequence libraries.  For the transcriptomic study, a BLASTn  (1e-20) search of each turfgrass sequence library was done against the Sorghum bicolor Ensembl EST database.  The turfgrass sequencing libraries similar to the S. bicolor ESTs ranged from 10 to 27%.  For the genomic sequencing libraries, genomic turfgrass sequences were aligned to the Brachypodium distachyon genome and contigs of each turfgrass species were distributed throughout the B. distachyon genome.  Sequencing tools are widely available and allow turfgrass researchers to begin understanding genome organization, gene conservation, and how turf responds to different stimulus.  This research will help improve our understanding of how turf systems are unique and what they share in common with other grass species.