Differentially expressed genes of the shrimp Marsupenaeus japonicus in response to infection by white spot syndrome virus or Vibrio alginolyticus

Abstract

This is the first study to use a next-generation high-throughput DNA sequencing technique, the Illumina Hiseq2000 method, to analyze the transcriptome from hemocytes of Marsupenaeus japonicus. A total of 80,929,652 Illumina reads, including 79,525,942 high quality reads were obtained in this study. From these, 40,231 unigenes with a mean length of 1557 bp were assembled using Trinity de novo software and 28,746 cDNA were matched in the NCBI database. Then we compared the transcriptome changes after white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) or Vibrio alginolyticus infection. A total of 19,872 putative proteins were classified functionally into 25 molecular families in the cluster of orthologous groups. KEGG pathway analysis identified that the metabolic pathway possessed more unigenes (1358 unigenes), followed by biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, Huntington's disease and RNA transport. Important immune functions like apoptosis, phagocytosis, and lysosomes were in response to WSSV and V. alginolyticus early infection. Only 26 transcripts were significantly up-regulated or down-regulated after WSSV infection showed compared with V. alginolyticus. Crustin-like protein, endonuclease-reverse transcriptase, putative nuclease HARBI1-like, diphthamide biosynthesis protein 7 and hormone receptor 3 were involved in the immune response to WSSV or V. alginolyticus infection. These transcriptome datasets accelerate our understanding of the innate immune mechanisms in M. japonicus and other crustaceans.