title: Transcriptome analysis of the pearl oyster (Pinctada fucata) hemocytes in response to Vibrio alginolyticus infection.
abstract: The pearl oyster Pinctada fucata is cultured widely for production of marine pearls in China, while mass mortalities, likely related to pathogenic infections, have occurred frequently in juvenile, mother and operated oysters. To address this issue, understanding host defense mechanisms of P. fucata against pathogenic challenge is extremely important. In the present study, a comparative analysis of hemocyte transcriptomes of P. fucata before and after Vibrio alginolyticus infection was conducted using the Illumina/Hiseq-2000 RNA-Seq technology. A total of 56,345,139 clean reads were generated and then assembled into 74,007 unigenes with an average length of 680 bp and an N50 of 1197 bp. Unigenes were annotated by comparing against non-redundant protein sequence (nr), non-redundant nucleotide (nt), Swiss-Prot, Pfam, Gene Ontology database (GO), Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COG) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) databases, and 29,615 unigenes (40.01%) were annotated in at least one database. There were 636 genes (518 up-regulated and 118 down-regulated) that were significantly differentially expressed after bacterial challenge, and among which 369 were associated with 122 pathways, including classical immune-related pathways, such as 'MAPK signaling pathway', 'Chemokine signaling pathway', 'Apoptosis' and 'Wnt signaling pathway'. These findings provide information on the pearl oyster innate immunity and may contribute to developing strategies for management of diseases and long-term sustainability of P. fucata culture.
authors.affiliation: College of Fisheries, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang 524025, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Aquaculture in South China Sea for Aquatic Economic Animals, Zhanjiang 524025, China.
authors.forename: Zhongliang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: College of Fisheries, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang 524025, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Biology and Epidemiology for Aquatic Economic Animals, Zhanjiang 524025, China.
authors.forename: Bei
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: College of Fisheries, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang 524025, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Aquaculture in South China Sea for Aquatic Economic Animals, Zhanjiang 524025, China.
authors.forename: Gang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: College of Fisheries, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang 524025, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Biology and Epidemiology for Aquatic Economic Animals, Zhanjiang 524025, China.
authors.forename: Jichang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jian
authors.affiliation: College of Fisheries, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang 524025, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Biology and Epidemiology for Aquatic Economic Animals, Zhanjiang 524025, China.
authors.forename: Yishan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Guangxi Key Laboratory of Beibu Gulf Marine Biodiversity Conservation, Qinzhou 535099, China.
authors.forename: Youhou
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Biology and Epidemiology for Aquatic Economic Animals, Zhanjiang 524025, China; Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering, Guangzhou 510225, China.
authors.forename: Zaohe
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling / Q000379:methods*; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006434:Hemocytes; D007113:Immunity, Innate; D058977:Molecular Sequence Annotation; D049911:Pinctada / Q000235:genetics* / Q000382:microbiology*; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D044149:Vibrio alginolyticus / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Bacterial challenge; Hemocyte; Immune response; RNA sequencing