Generation of 10,154 expressed sequence tags from a leafy gametophyte of a marine red alga, Porphyra yezoensis

A total of 10,154 5'-end expressed sequence tags (EST) were established from the normalized and size-selected cDNA libraries of a marine red alga, Porphyra yezoensis. Among the ESTs, 2140 were unique species, and the remaining 8014 were grouped into 1127 species. Database search of the 3267 non-redundant ESTs by BLAST algorithm showed that the sequences of 1080 species (33.1%) have similarity to those of registered genes from various organisms including higher plants, mammals, yeasts, and cyanobacteria, while 2187 (66.9%) are novel. Codon usage analysis in the coding regions of 101 non-redundant EST groups showing significant similarity to known genes indicated the higher GC contents at the third position of codons (79.4%) than the first (62.2%) and the second position (45.0%), suggesting that the genome has been exposed to high GC pressure during evolution. The sequence data of individual ESTs are available at the web site http://www.kazusa.or.jp/en/plantjporphyra/EST/.