Objective Full-length transcriptome of Oenothera biennis was sequenced with the genes related to the pharmaceutically interesting metabolites contained in the plant identified.

Method Roots, stems, leaves, flowers, and seeds of O. biennis were collected for full-length transcriptome sequencing by SMRT for a bioinformatics analysis.

Result There were 843843 circular consensus reads containing 28875 non-redundant unigenes with an average length of 1718 bp and a redundancy-free GC content of 45.6%. The NR database showed the highest similarity of O. biennis with Punica granatum. The GO annotation classified the 18169 unigenes into groups of biological processes, cell components, and molecular functions, while the KEGG did on the 12213 unigenes into 5 major groups with the most, 5416 of them, being enriched in metabolic pathways and 6695 in 56 transcription factor families. The 5543 mononucleotide and 5529 trinucleotide repeats were the highest in number. There were 13 pairs of SSR primers in the 6 species of O. bienni that showed polymorphic markers. Twenty of the 50 γ-linolenic acid (GLA) metabolism-related genes identified in the full-length transcripts database were highly expressed in the seeds.

Conclusion The information obtained would aid gene cloning and functional studies of O. biennis to capitalize the variety of valuable biologically active ingredients such as flavonoids, phenolic compounds, fatty acids, and vitamins contained in the plant.