GSE38022
Transcriptome response to salinity stress in the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas
Low salinity is one of the main factors limiting the distribution and survival of marine species. As a euryhaline species, the Pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas can be tolerant to relative low salinity. Through Illumina sequencing, we generated two transcriptomes with samples taken from gills of oysters exposed to the low salinity seawater versus the optimal seawater. By RNAseq technology, we found 1665 up-regulation genes and 1815 down-regulation genes that may regulate osmotic stress in C. gigas. As blasted by GO annotation and KEGG pathway mapping, functional annotation of the genes recovered diverse biological functions and processes. The genes regulated significantly were dominated in cellular process and regulation of biological process, intracellular and cell, binding and protein binding according to GO annotation. The results highlight genes related to osmoregulation and signaling and interactions of osmotic stress response, anti-apoptotic reactions as well as immune response, cell adhesion and communication, cytosqueleton and cell cycle. The study aimed to compare the expression data of the two transcriptomes to provide some useful insights into signal transduction pathways in oysters and offer a number of candidate genes as potential markers of tolerance to hypoosmotic stress for oysters. In addition, the characterization of C. gigas transcriptome will facilitate research into biological processes underlying physiological adaptations to hypoosmotic shock for marine invertebrates. Overall design: Twelve Pacific oysters were exposed in low salinity (8‰) seawater and in optimal salinity (25‰) seawater, respectively. Gills from six oysters in each condition were balanced mixed respectively. The transcriptomes of two samples were generated by deep sequencing, using Illumina HiSeq2000.