EN
Drought is one of the main limiting factors for peanut yield worldwide. However, the underlying genetic and molecular mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, we identified several water deficiency tolerant peanut germplasms based on physiological properties in the seedling stage. One of the germplasms was further characterized by transcriptome sequencing of samples that had been untreated or treated with PEG 6000 at three different times. A total of 370,145 non-redundant transcripts and 141,289 unigenes were obtained, and differentially expressed transcripts were identified among samples. Based on functional annotation, transcripts involved in drought response pathways were selected for qPCR analysis. Similar patterns but different levels of gene expression were found between drought-tolerant and drought-sensitive germplasms. These findings provide useful insights into drought tolerance of peanut.