Camellia brevistyla is a native tree species in Taiwan with economic importance for cooking oil and tea-seed oil. In this study we built the first transcriptome database of C. brevistyla, establishing
a valuable resource for future investigations. We also developed and validated microsatellite
markers for analyzing genetic relationships within the species. We obtained 65,722 unigenes
and identified 25,996 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) within 47,595 unigenes and designed 8,113
SSR primers. Among these, 2,158 SSRs were longer than 18 base pairs (bps), primarily tri-nucleotide
repeats, and the largest percentage (37%) were CT/TC repeats. Of the randomly selected 90
primer pairs, 49 (54.44%) were successfully amplified using a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
and then analyzed with a 1.5% agarose gel. In a gene ontology (GO) analysis, 34,009 unigenes
were assigned 1 or more GO terms at level 2. In a Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes
(KEGG) database analysis, 7,842 unigenes were annotated against the KEGG database, locating
16,109 enzyme-catalyzed sites on 141 KEGG pathways. Fatty-acid related metabolism involved 23
sites catalyzed by enzymes. We expect that this database and the SSR markers identified will contribute
to ongoing molecular breeding, variety identification, gene cloning, and genetic analyses.