Abstract
BackgroundTemperature is known to affect living organisms and alter the expression of responsive genes, which affects a series of life processes, such as development, reproduction and metabolism. Several genes and gene families have been involved in high temperature responses, such as heat shock protein (hsp) family, Jumonji family and genes related to cortisol synthesis. Gonad is a vital organ related to the existence of a species. However, the comprehensive understanding of gonadal responses to environmental temperature is limited.ResultsTo explore the effects of environmental temperature on genes and gene networks in gonads, we performed acute heat treatment (48 h) on Chinese tongue sole (Cynoglossus semilaevis). Gonadal transcriptome analysis was conducted on females, pseudomales and males exposed to high (28 °C) and normal (22 °C) temperatures. A total of 1226.24 million clean reads were obtained from 18 libraries. Principal component analysis (PCA) and differentially expressed gene (DEG) analysis revealed different performance of sex responses to heat stress. There were 4565, 790 and 1117 specific genes altered their expression level in females, pseudomales and males, respectively. Of these, genes related to hsp gene family, cortisol synthesis and metabolism and epigenetic regulation were involved in early heat response. Furthermore, a total of 1048 DEGs were shared among females, pesudomales and males, which may represent the inherent difference between high and normal temperatures. Genes, such as eef1akmt3, eef1akmt4, pnmt and hsp family members, were found.ConclusionsOur results depicted for the first time the gonadal gene expression under acute high temperature treatment in Chinese tongue sole. The findings may provide a clue for understanding the responses of genes and networks to environmental temperature.
Highlights
Temperature is known to affect living organisms and alter the expression of responsive genes, which affects a series of life processes, such as development, reproduction and metabolism
Gonadal transcriptome of C. semilaevis To identify genes involved in response to heat stress in C. semilaevis, transcriptome sequencing was performed in the gonads of 3 females, 3 pseudomales, and 3 males of the control (CT_F1–3, CT_P1–3 and CT_M1–3; 22 °C treatment, CT group) and heat stress (HS_F1–3, HS_P1–3 and HS_M1–3; 28 °C treatment, HS group) groups
An average of 88.87% of the clean reads was mapped to the high-quality C. semilaevis reference genome [National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Cse_v1.0, BioProject no
Summary
Temperature is known to affect living organisms and alter the expression of responsive genes, which affects a series of life processes, such as development, reproduction and metabolism. Several genes and gene families have been involved in high temperature responses, such as heat shock protein (hsp) family, Jumonji family and genes related to cortisol synthesis. The comprehensive understanding of gonadal responses to environmental temperature is limited. Water temperature is a major environmental factor that affects the development, metabolism and reproduction of aquatic ectotherms [1, 2]. The increase of temperature may change the responsory genes expression, which can affect the regulatory networks. The response to high temperature has the difference between females and males [4]. The particular response mechanism in gonad under high temperature is needed to be clarified
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