Gene Function Expression Profile of Faba bean (Vicia faba) Seeds

Faba bean (Vicia faba L) is one of the important grain crops worldwide and its genome, the largest among grain legumes (approx. 13.4 Gb), has yet to be sequenced. Comprehensive knowledge of genes expressed in the crop's large seeds would not only help drive new genetic improvements in the crop but also aid its future genome characterization. Here, we applied high throughput RNASeq (Quantification) technology to compare gene expression profiles of seeds recovered from six faba bean varieties with divergent agronomic and seed quality attributes. We identified a total of 47,621 Unigenes across all genotypes and a mean count of 38,712 per genotype, total genes length 27605508bp. Comparison between expression levels in lines possessing contrasting phenotypes allowed us to identify candidate genes that may be associated with key traits. In all pairwise comparisons of genotypes, pairwise up-regulated plus down-regulated differences varied between 8,661 and 12,337 genes and co-expressed genes fluctuated between 30,239 and 35,884. Overall, there was a mean of 24.2% genes that were differentially expressed between pairs of genotypes. They were similar of GO profiles generated between the two phenotypic traits (Hydration Capacity and Pea seed-borne mosaic virus (PSbMV) pools and comparison of the GO profiles generated by all pairs of individual genotypes. This is the first comprehensive analysis of gene expression genetic profile on faba bean seeds.