RNA-Seq of Littorina saxatilis: KB Infected 2
Specimens of L. saxatilis were collected from the wild populations were transported to the laboratory, where they were exposed to 3 weeks of acclimation in the tank under standard aquarium conditions to alleviate the temporal effects of local region-related variation. Then, mollusks were dissected and checked for a parasitic infection in the hepatopancreas. Parasites were identified to the species level based on the morphological features of the daughter sporocysts and metacercariae using uncovered microscopic slides. Soft body parts without hepatopancreas of healthy and infected mollusks were rinsed in distilled water, then fixed individually in Trizol (TRIzol, Merck) and frozen at -80 C. The tissues were mechanically homogenized and total RNA was isolated with a customized standard TRIzol extraction protocol. cDNA synthesis was performed using the Mint cDNA synthesis kit (Evrogen) following the manufacturer's recommendations.