System-based transcriptomic and metabolomic network analyses in Papaver somniferum

Papaver somniferum is an annual plant which produces economically important medicinal alkaloids, oils, and seeds. The morphine biosynthesis pathway in P. somniferum has been characterized but a system-wide analysis of transcriptional modules that regulate the concentration of alkaloids within the plant has not yet been performed.In this study we use weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) of a de novo assembly of 5 tissues of P. somniferum. We use differentially expressed transcripts to build a weighted gene co-expression network using the WGCNA bioconductor package. Finally we analyze those modules which correlate well with LC-MS/MS generated metabolite concentration values.