Dataset on transcriptome profiling of in vitro wild and cultivar genotypes of Elettaria cardamomum Maton (L) in response to temperature stress

Abstract

Elettaria cardamomum (L) Maton, renowned as the ‘Queen of spices’, is among the most expensive spices globally due to its distinctive aroma and multiple utility in food and medical preparations. The present work provides a dataset on the transcriptome profiling and de novo assembly of temperature-stressed wild and cultivar varieties of cardamom plants under in vitro conditions. RNA sequencing using Novaseq 6000 (Illumina) of the four samples, treated at 25 °C and at 40 °C, along with their replicas, has generated a total of 287.37 million reads. The raw data of the eight libraries sequenced were submitted to the NCBI SRA database under the bioproject ID PRJNA1053347. The quality filtered raw reads were further subjected to de novo transcriptome assembly using Trinity v2.15.1, resulting in the generation of a comprehensive reference transcriptome consisting of 348,361 contigs with an N50 value of 2014. The 248,788 unigenes clustered with CD-HIT were further annotated with available databases and annotation tools for functional prediction and the identification of differentially expressed unigenes. The research offers a valuable transcriptome resource for future studies in the Zingiberaceae family, highlighting key unigenes linked to the stress-responsive mechanisms of cardamom. The gene ontology and KEGG pathway analysis identified transcriptomic factors related to temperature stress adaptation, which could assist in genetically modifying the plant for better survival in harsh conditions.