Ovarian Transcriptome Analysis of Portunus trituberculatus Provides Insights into Genes Expressed during Phase III and IV Development

PLoS One. 2015 Oct 2;10(10):e0138862. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0138862. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

Enhancing the production of aquatic animals is crucial for fishery management and aquaculture applications. Ovaries are specialized tissues that play critical roles in producing oocytes and hormones. Significant biochemical changes take place during the sexual maturation of Portunus trituberculatus, but the genetics of this process has not been extensively studied. Transcriptome sequencing can be used to determine gene expression changes within specific periods. In the current study, we used transcriptome sequencing to produce a comprehensive transcript dataset for the ovarian development of P. trituberculatus. Approximately 100 million sequencing reads were generated, and 126,075 transcripts were assembled. Functional annotation of the obtained transcripts revealed important pathways in ovarian development, such as those involving the vitellogenin gene. Also, we performed deep sequencing of ovaries in phases III and IV of sexual maturation in P. trituberculatus. Differential analysis of gene expression identified 506 significantly differentially expressed genes, which belong to 20 pathway, transporters, development, transcription factors, metabolism of other amino acids, carbohydrate and lipid, solute carrier family members, and enzymes. Taken together, our study provides the first comprehensive transcriptomic resource for P. trituberculatus ovaries, which will strengthen understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the sexual maturation process and advance molecular nutritional studies of P. trituberculatus.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Crustacea / genetics*
  • Crustacea / growth & development
  • Female
  • Ovary / metabolism*
  • Transcriptome*

Grants and funding

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (http://www.nsfc.gov.cn/), Transformation Fund for Agricultural Science (http://nyt.zj.gov.cn/), KC Wong Magana Fund in Ningbo University (http://www.nbu.edu.cn/), Public Projects of Zhejiang Province (http://www.zjkjt.gov.cn/), Zhoushan Science and Technology Bureau project (http://www.zjkjt.gov.cn/), and Scientific Research Foundation of Zhejiang Ocean University (http://www.zjou.edu.cn/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The funder provided support in the form of salaries for authors YY, JW, TH, CW, JX, CM, RL, FY, HS, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.