title: Construction and analysis of gonad suppression subtractive hybridization libraries for the rice field eel, Monopterus albus.
abstract: The objective of this study was to investigate gene transcription profiles of the stage IV ovary and the ovotestis of the rice field eel (Monopterus albus) in an attempt to uncover genes involved in sex reversal and gonad development. Suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) libraries were constructed using mRNA from the stage IV ovary and the ovotestis. In total 100 positive clones from the libraries were selected at random and sequenced, and then expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were used to search against sequences in the GenBank database using the BLASTn and BLASTx search algorithms. High quality SSH cDNA libraries and 90 ESTs were obtained. Of these ESTs, 43 showed high homology with genes of known function and these are associated with energy metabolism, signal transduction, transcription regulation and so on. The remaining 47 ESTs shared no homology with any genes in GenBank and are thus considered to be hypothetical genes. Furthermore, the four genes F11, F63, R11, and R47 from the forward and reverse libraries were analyzed in gonad, brain, heart, spleen, liver, kidney and muscle tissues. The results showed that the transcription of the F11 and F63 genes was significantly increased while the expression of the R11 and R47 genes was significantly decreased from IV or V ovary. In addition, the results also indicated that the four genes' expression was not gonad-tissue specific. This results strongly suggested that they may be involved in the rice field eel gonad development and/or sex reversal.
authors.affiliation: College of Fisheries and Life Sciences, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201306, China.
authors.forename: Xiancheng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qu
authors.affiliation: College of Life Sciences, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin 541004,China.
authors.forename: Jiaoyun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: College of Fisheries and Life Sciences, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201306, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoli
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shang
authors.affiliation: College of Fisheries and Life Sciences, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201306, China.
authors.forename: Cui
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: College of Fisheries and Life Sciences, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201306, China.
authors.forename: Long
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: College of Fisheries and Life Sciences, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai 201306, China. Electronic address: qgliu@shou.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Qigen
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D005260:Female; D029941:Fish Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D015723:Gene Library; D009693:Nucleic Acid Hybridization; D009928:Organ Specificity; D010053:Ovary / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012733:Sex Differentiation / Q000235:genetics*; D023701:Smegmamorpha / Q000235:genetics*; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D029941:Fish Proteins
keywords: Expressed sequence tags (ESTs); Hermaphroditical fish; Ovotestis; Sex reversal