Characterization and expression analysis of differentially expressed genes in the red swamp crayfish Procambarus clarkii in response to Vibrio cholerae challenge

Abstract

Procambarus clarkii is an important freshwater aquaculture species. One of the most serious diseases in P. clarkii is rotten shell disease. However, there is few report about the immune response of P. clarkii hepatopancreas to Vibrio cholerae. Using transcriptome analysis, this research investigated the immunological response of P. clarkii to V. cholerae at the gene expression level. It was found that 44,043,166 cleaning readings were present in the treatment group. A total of 34,237 unigenes were discovered, with a mean length of 1507. Moreover, 360 unigenes were found to have significantly altered expression, with 102 of them being considerably up-regulated. According to further annotation and analysis, it was found that DEGs are rich in Glutathione metabolism, Lysosome, Phagosome, Apoptosis, Adherens junction, and Leukocyte transient migration. These pathways are mostly associated with antioxidants, phagocytosis, and pathogen clearance. Furthermore, quantitative real time-PCR (qRT-PCR) confirmed the up-regulation of immune defense genes of DEGs, which supported the RNA-seq data. This study may serve as a foundation for future research on the immunological response of P. clarkii, as well as provide recommendations for P. clarkii against V. cholerae infection.