title: Expression Characterization of Stress Genes Under High and Low Temperature Stresses in the Pacific Oyster, Crassostrea gigas.
abstract: As a characteristic sessile inhabitant of the intertidal zone, the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas occupies one of the most physically stressful environments on earth. With high exposure to terrestrial conditions, oysters must tolerate broad fluctuations in temperature range. However, oysters' cellular and molecular responses to temperature stresses have not been fully characterized. Here, we analyzed oyster transcriptome data under high and low temperatures. We also identified over 30 key temperature stress-responsive candidate genes, which encoded stress proteins such as heat shock proteins and apoptosis-associated proteins. The expression characterization of these genes under short-term cold and hot environments (5 and 35 °C) and long-term cold environments (5 °C) was detected by quantitative real-time PCR. Most of these genes reached expression peaks during the recovery stage after 24 h of heat stress, and these genes were greatly induced around day 3 in long-term cold stress while responded little to short-term cold stress. In addition, in the second heat stress after 2 days of recovery, oysters showed milder expression in these genes and a lower mortality rate, which indicated the existence of plasticity in the oyster's response to heat stress. We confirmed that homeostatic flexibility and anti-apoptosis might be crucial centers of temperature stress responses in oysters. Furthermore, we analyzed stress gene families in 11 different species and found that the linage-specific expansion of stress genes might be implicated in adaptive evolution. These results indicated that both plasticity and evolution played an important role in the stress response adaptation of oysters.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.|National & Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Ecological Mariculture, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, China.
authors.forename: Qihui
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, China.|Laboratory for Marine Biology and Biotechnology, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.|National & Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Ecological Mariculture, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, China.
authors.forename: Linlin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, China. lili@qdio.ac.cn.|National & Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Ecological Mariculture, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, China. lili@qdio.ac.cn.|Laboratory for Marine Fisheries and Aquaculture, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China. lili@qdio.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, China.|Laboratory for Marine Biology and Biotechnology, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China.|National & Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Ecological Mariculture, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, China.
authors.forename: Huayong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Que
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, China. gfzhang@qdio.ac.cn.|Laboratory for Marine Biology and Biotechnology, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, China. gfzhang@qdio.ac.cn.|National & Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Ecological Mariculture, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, China. gfzhang@qdio.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Guofan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological / Q000235:genetics*; D000818:Animals; D051017:Apoptosis Regulatory Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D003080:Cold Temperature; D049896:Crassostrea / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D006358:Hot Temperature; D010802:Phylogeny; D060888:Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013312:Stress, Physiological; D059467:Transcriptome
chemical_list: D051017:Apoptosis Regulatory Proteins; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins
keywords: Adaptation; Gene expression; Oysters; Stress proteins; Temperature stress