title: Transcriptome changes in Eriocheir sinensis megalopae after desalination provide insights into osmoregulation and stress adaption in larvae.
abstract: Eriocheir sinensis, an extremely invasive alien crab species, has important economic value in China. It encounters different salinities during its life cycle, and at the megalopal stage it faces a turning point regarding the salinity in its environment. We applied RNA sequencing to E. sinensis megalopae before (MB) and after (MA) desalination, resulting in the discovery of 21,042 unigenes and 908 differentially expressed genes (DEGs, 4.32% of the unigenes). The DEGs primarily belonged to the Gene Ontology groups "Energy metabolism," "Oxidoreductase activity," "Translation," "Transport," "Metabolism," and "Stress response." In total, 33 DEGs related to transport processes were found, including 12 proton pump genes, three ATP-binding cassettes (ABCs), 13 solute carrier (SLC) family members, two sweet sugar transporter (ST) family members and three other substance transporters. Mitochondrial genes as well as genes involved in the tricarboxylic acid cycle, glycolytic pathway, or β-oxidation pathway, which can generate energy in the form of ATP, were typically up-regulated in MA. 11 unigenes related to amino acid metabolism and a large number of genes related to protein synthesis were differentially expressed in MB and MA, indicating that E. sinensis possibly adjusts its concentration of free amino acid osmolytes for hyper-osmoregulation. Additionally, 33 salinity and oxidative stress induced genes were found to be differentially expressed, such as the LEA2, HSPs, GST and coagulation factor genes. Notably, LEA2 is an extremely hydrophilic protein that responds to desiccation and reported for the first time in crabs. Therefore, we suppose that when the environment is hypo-osmotic, the megalopae might compensate for ion loss via hyper-osmoregulation by consuming more energy, accompanied by a series of stress induced adaptions. This study provides the first genome-wide transcriptome analysis of E. sinensis megalopae for studying its osmoregulation and stress adaption mechanisms.
authors.affiliation: EMBL, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China.
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hui
authors.affiliation: EMBL, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China.
authors.forename: Yuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: EMBL, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
authors.forename: Chengwen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: EMBL, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China.
authors.forename: Yingdong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: EMBL, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
authors.forename: Guohui
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: EMBL, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China; National & Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Ecological Mariculture, Qingdao, 266071, China.
authors.forename: Zhaoxia
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Cui
mesh_terms: D025181:ATP Synthetase Complexes / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000235:genetics; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D003386:Brachyura / Q000235:genetics* / Q000254:growth & development / Q000378:metabolism; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004734:Energy Metabolism / Q000235:genetics; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D015723:Gene Library; D007814:Larva / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D064587:Osmoregulation / Q000235:genetics; D010085:Oxidative Phosphorylation; D018384:Oxidative Stress / Q000235:genetics; D021122:Protein Subunits / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D054712:Salinity; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D021122:Protein Subunits; D025181:ATP Synthetase Complexes