Data set for transcriptome analysis of the Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus )

The Chinese giant salamander (Andrias davidianus) occupies a seat at the phylogenetic and species evolution process, which makes it an invaluable model for genetics; however, the genetic information and gene sequences about the Chinese giant salamander in public databases are scanty. Hence, we aimed to perform transcriptome analysis with the help of high-throughput sequencing. In this data, 61,317,940 raw reads were acquired from Chinese giant salamander mRNA using Illumina paired-end sequencing platform. After de novo assembly, a total of 72,072 unigenes were gained, in which 33,834 (46.95%) and 29,479 (40.91%) transcripts exhibited homology to sequences in the Nr database and Swiss-Prot database, (E-value <10(−5)), respectively. In the obtained unigenes, 18,019 (25%) transcripts were assigned with at least one Gene Ontology term, of which 1218 (6.8%) transcripts were assigned to immune system processes. In addition, a total of 17,572 assembled sequences were assigned into 241 predicted KEGG metabolic pathways. Among these, 2552 (14.5%) transcripts were assigned to the immune system relevant pathway and 5 transcripts were identified as potential antimicrobial peptides (AMPs).