Gene ontology study of methyl jasmonate-treated and non-treated hairy roots of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Panax ginseng</Emphasis> to identify genes involved in secondary metabolic pathway

The roots of Panax ginseng C.A. Meyer, known as Korean ginseng have been a valuable and important folk medicine in East Asian countries. It mainly used to maintain the homeostasis of the human body, with the presence of ginsenosides and non-saponin compounds like phenol compounds, acidic polysaccharides and polyethylene compounds. Functional genomics aid to annotate EST sequences based on gene ontology. In this study, we focused, genes which involve in secondary metabolic pathways and to visualize temporal changes of gene expression in ginseng hairy roots with methyl ester methyl jasmonate (MeJA) along with non-treated hairy roots. A 5.774 EST clones were clustered and assembled into 501 contigs and 2.955 singletons. Annotations categorized with molecular functions, biological processes, cellular compounds of gene ontological terms and biochemical functions, enzyme commission number, and metabolic pathways are assigned through Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes database. Comparatively, EST sequences are assigned to cellular process, metabolic process, biotic and abiotic stress stimuli, developmental and biological regulations and transports are up-regulated 2–3 fold in MeJA treated hairy roots. 46 different sub groups of enzymes found in the MeJA treated plants. These annotated ESTs represents a significant proportion of the P. ginseng and provides molecular resource for develop microarray to study genes expressions to development, metabolism and reproduction.