title: The eyestalk transcriptome of red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii.
abstract: The red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii, Girard 1852) is among the most economically important freshwater crustacean species, and it is also considered one of the most aggressive invasive species worldwide. Despite its commercial importance and being one of the most studied crayfish species, its genomic and transcriptomic layout has only been partially studied. Illumina RNA-sequencing was applied to characterize the eyestalk transcriptome and identify its most characterizing genes. A collection of 83,170,732 reads from eyestalks was obtained using Illumina paired-end sequencing technology. A de novo assembly was performed with the Trinity assembly software generating 119,255 contigs (average length of 1,007 bp) and identifying the first sequenced transcriptome in this species. The eyestalk is a major site for the production of neurohormones and controls a variety of physiological functions such as osmotic regulation, molting, epidermal color patterns and reproduction. Hence, its transcriptomic characterization is interesting and potentially instrumental to the elucidation of genes which have not been comprehensively described yet. Moreover, the availability of such a large amount of information supported the characterization of molecular families which have never been described before. The P. clarkii eyestalk transcriptome reported here provides a resource for improving the knowledge of the still incompletely defined neuroendocrinology of this species and represents an important source of data for all the interested carcinologists.
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Via Giorgieri 5, Trieste 34127, Italy.
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Manfrin
authors.affiliation: Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, P.O.B 8030, Haifa 31080, Israel.
authors.forename: Moshe
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tom
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Via Giorgieri 5, Trieste 34127, Italy.
authors.forename: Gianluca
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: De Moro
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Via Giorgieri 5, Trieste 34127, Italy.
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gerdol
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Via Giorgieri 5, Trieste 34127, Italy.
authors.forename: Piero Giulio
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Giulianini
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Via Giorgieri 5, Trieste 34127, Italy. Electronic address: pallavic@units.it.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pallavicini
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003400:Astacoidea / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D001483:Base Sequence; D005123:Eye / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism*; D005260:Female; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D008297:Male; D008550:Melatonin / Q000378:metabolism; D009490:Neurosecretory Systems / Q000378:metabolism*; D036361:Peptide Hormones / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D017956:Photoreceptor Cells, Invertebrate; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D059467:Transcriptome / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D036361:Peptide Hormones; D008550:Melatonin
keywords: Eyestalk; Illumina sequencing; Neuroendocrinology; Procambarus clarkii; Red swamp crayfish; Transcriptome; Vision