Abstract
Simple SummaryOur study analyzed the differentiation of transcriptomes in normal and sex-reverse Takifugu rubripes, and screened out 13 differentially expressed genes related to sex differentiation. This is the first report on the gonadal transcriptome of pseudo-males in Takifugu rubripes. Our results provide an important contribution to the molecular mechanism of masculinization in a cultured fish subject to low-temperature treatment.The phenotypic sex of fish is usually plastic. Low-temperature treatment induces the masculinization of Takifugu rubripes, resulting in pseudo-males (PM) with the physiological sex of a male (M) and genetic sex of a female (F). For a comparison of gonadal transcriptomes, we collected gonads from three groups of T. rubripes (F, M, and PM) for high-throughput transcriptome sequencing. The results provided 467,640,218 raw reads (70.15 Gb) and a total of 436,151,088 clean reads (65.43 Gb), with an average length of 150 bp. Only 79 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified between F and PM, whereas 12,041 and 11,528 DEGs were identified between F and M, and PM and M, respectively. According to the functional annotation of DEGs, 13 DEGs related to gonadal development were screened (LOC101066759, dgat1, limk1, fbxl3, col6a3, fgfr3, dusp22b, svil, abhd17b, srgap3, tmem88b, bud4, and mustn10) which might participate in formating PM. A quantitative PCR of the DEGs confirmed the reliability of the RNA-seq. Our results provide an important contribution to the genome sequence resources for T. rubripes and insight into the molecular mechanism of masculinization in a cultured fish subject to low-temperature treatment.
Highlights
IntroductionMany economically important cultured fishes differ by sex in terms of their production performance, body size, growth rate, or age at sexual maturity [1]
The transcripts per million (TPM) normalization method was used to measure the proportion of a transcript in the RNA pool to make the estimated gene expression levels comparable between different genes and different experiments
The number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) was lowest between F and PM (11 F upregulated, 67 F downregulated), while the numbers were higher between F and M (5017 F upregulated, 7024 F downregulated) and between M
Summary
Many economically important cultured fishes differ by sex in terms of their production performance, body size, growth rate, or age at sexual maturity [1]. The artificial control of fish sex, especially to select for best growth performance, is widely applied in aquaculture. Takifugu rubripes is among the most commonly cultured fishes in China, Korea, and Japan; the annual production of Takifugu rubripes in 2019 was 9911 tons. It is a preferred aquaculture product and an important product for export in northern China
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
