Abstract
BackgroundThe Mediterranean mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis) is a cosmopolitan, cultured bivalve with worldwide commercial and ecological importance. However, there is a qualitative and quantitative lack of knowledge of the molecular mechanisms involved in the physiology and immune response of this mollusc. In order to start filling this gap, we have studied the transcriptome of mantle, muscle and gills from naïve Mediterranean mussels and hemocytes exposed to distinct stimuli.ResultsA total of 393,316 million raw RNA-Seq reads were obtained and assembled into 151,320 non-redundant transcripts with an average length of 570 bp. Only 55 % of the transcripts were shared across all tissues. Hemocyte and gill transcriptomes shared 60 % of the transcripts while mantle and muscle transcriptomes were most similar, with 77 % shared transcripts. Stimulated hemocytes showed abundant defense and immune-related proteins, in particular, an extremely high amount of antimicrobial peptides. Gills expressed many transcripts assigned to both structure and recognition of non-self patterns, while in mantle many transcripts were related to reproduction and shell formation. Moreover, this tissue presented additional and interesting hematopoietic, antifungal and sensorial functions. Finally, muscle expressed many myofibril and calcium-related proteins and was found to be unexpectedly associated with defense functions. In addition, many metabolic routes related to cancer were represented.ConclusionsOur analyses indicate that whereas the transcriptomes of these four tissues have characteristic expression profiles in agreement with their biological structures and expected functions, tissue-specific transcriptomes reveal a complex and specialized functions.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1817-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Highlights
The Mediterranean mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis) is a cosmopolitan, cultured bivalve with worldwide commercial and ecological importance
A possible explanation for this could be that, as a filter feeding animal, M. galloprovincialis is permanently in contact with microorganisms and with toxic/pollutant substances in their marine environment [38], and has adapted to become very resistant to these impacts [39, 40]. Another group of diseaseassociated pathways were those related to cancer, which ranked second among the most represented pathways, like in other studies in oysters [29]
We have shown the value of whole-transcriptome analysis generated via RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) for accurate quantification of gene expression
Summary
The Mediterranean mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis) is a cosmopolitan, cultured bivalve with worldwide commercial and ecological importance. The Mediterranean mussel (Mytilus galloprovincialis) is a cultured bivalve species with an important commercial and ecological value worldwide [1, 2]. Molluscs lack a specific immune response, their innate response, which involves circulating hemocytes and a large variety of molecular effectors, constitutes an efficient defense. Several bivalve transcriptomes are publicly available for M. galloprovincialis [21, 22], Bathymodiolus azoricus [23], Patinopecten yessoensis [24], Ruditapes philippinarum [25, 26] Corbicula fluminea [27] and Crassotrea gigas [19, 28, 29]. 23 M. galloprovincialis entries are publicly available in the SRA database, including whole-body, digestive gland and hemocytes transcriptomes, a M. galloprovincialis EST database called Mytibase [16]
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