Transcriptome profiles of wild and cultured South African abalone, Haliotis midae.

This report describes the use of pyrosequencing technologies to generate the first comparative analysis of de novo assembled transcriptome data from cultured and wild specimens of the South African abalone. The transcriptome data and database described here provide a significant genomic resource for abalone research. The data set annotated 11,240 genes, which matched genes with known functions in other species. A large number of transmembrane protein domains (4087) that may indicate a high portion of undiscovered gene receptors were identified. Further, we detected an interesting set of transcription factors (516) that are valuable candidates for participating in regulatory events in developmental (such as cell proliferation and differentiation) and reproductive processes.