Genome-wide analysis of lncRNAs in Paulownia tomentosa infected with phytoplasmas

Paulownia witches’ broom is arisen from the invasion of an obligatory parasitic bacteria-phytoplasma, which can result in huge economic losses of Paulownia trees. The mechanism of the occurrence of this disease has been studied extensively. However, its pathogenesis is still poorly understood. Here, whole transcriptome strand-specific RNA sequencing was performed to identify long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) that referred to phytoplasma infection in Paulownia. In all, 2725 lncRNAs were identified and 748 of them were considered to be differentially expressed. KEGG pathway analysis showed the predicted target genes of these 748 lncRNAs participated mainly in lignin biosynthesis pathway, plant–pathogen interaction pathway and plant hormone signal transduction pathway, which indicated that lncRNAs may be closely related to the occurrence of witches’ broom. The results provide new perspective into the function of lncRNAs in Paulownia and potentially in other trees in answering phytoplasma invasion.