Abstract
BackgroundThe swimming crab Portunus trituberculatus is one of the most commonly farmed crustaceans in China. As one of the most widely known and high-value edible crabs, it crab supports large crab fishery and aquaculture in China. Only large and sexually mature crabs can provide the greatest economic benefits, suggesting the considerable effect of reproductive system development on fishery. Studies are rarely conducted on the molecular regulatory mechanism underlying the development of the reproductive system during the mating embrace stage in this species. In this study, we used high-throughput sequencing to sequence all transcriptomes of the P. trituberculatus reproductive system.ResultsTranscriptome sequencing of the reproductive system produced 81,688,878 raw reads (38,801,152 and 42,887,726 reads from female and male crabs, respectively). Low-quality (quality <20) reads were trimmed and removed, leaving only high-quality reads (37,020,664 and 41,021,030 from female and male crabs, respectively). A total of 126,188 (female) and 164,616 (male) transcripts were then generated by de novo transcriptome assembly using Trinity. Functional annotation of the obtained unigenes revealed that a large number of key genes and some important pathways may participate in cell proliferation and signal transduction. On the basis of our transcriptome analyses and as confirmed by quantitative real-time PCR, a number of genes potentially involved in the regulation of gonadal development and reproduction of P. trituberculatus were identified: ADRA1B, BAP1, ARL3, and TRPA1.ConclusionThis study is the first to report on the whole reproductive system transcriptome information in stage II of P. trituberculatus gonadal development and provides rich resources for further studies to elucidate the molecular basis of the development of reproductive systems and reproduction in crabs. The current study can be used to further investigate functional genomics in this species.
Highlights
The swimming crab Portunus trituberculatus is one of the most commonly farmed crustaceans in China
Illumina sequencing and assembly To obtain an overview of the reproductive system transcriptome of P. trituberculatus and identify the genes involved in the development and maturation of the reproductive systems, two cDNA libraries were prepared from pooled RNA extracts of female and male reproductive systems in stage II
A total of 135,992 transcripts and 88,804 unigenes were obtained among which were many genes potentially involved in gonadal development, gametogenesis, and signal transduction
Summary
The swimming crab Portunus trituberculatus is one of the most commonly farmed crustaceans in China. P. trituberculatus is one of the most important marine species cultured in China because of its high nutritional content and economic value. This crab has a life cycle of 2–3 years and can reach sexual maturity in the first year [3, 4]. After puberty molt and mating, the female P. trituberculatus usually starts vitellogenesis and ovarian development [3, 5] During these stages, the development of the reproductive system is vital to P. trituberculatus because are many larval crabs needed for aquaculture, an individual with a mature ovary is more widely known to consumers as well
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