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Abstract
BackgroundThe African annual fish Nothobranchius furzeri has over recent years been established as a model species for ageing-related studies. This is mainly based on its exceptionally short lifespan and the presence of typical characteristics of vertebrate ageing. To substantiate its role as an alternative vertebrate ageing model, a transcript catalogue is needed, which can serve e.g. as basis for identifying ageing-related genes.ResultsTo build the N. furzeri transcript catalogue, thirteen cDNA libraries were sequenced using Sanger, 454/Roche and Solexa/Illumina technologies yielding about 39 Gb. In total, 19,875 protein-coding genes were identified and annotated. Of these, 71% are represented by at least one transcript contig with a complete coding sequence. Further, transcript levels of young and old fish of the strains GRZ and MZM-0403, which differ in lifespan by twofold, were studied by RNA-seq. In skin and brain, 85 differentially expressed genes were detected; these have a role in cell cycle control and proliferation, inflammation and tissue maintenance. An RNA-seq experiment for zebrafish skin confirmed the ageing-related relevance of the findings in N. furzeri. Notably, analyses of transcript levels between zebrafish and N. furzeri but also between N. furzeri strains differed largely, suggesting that ageing is accelerated in the short-lived N. furzeri strain GRZ compared to the longer-lived strain MZM-0403.ConclusionsWe provide a comprehensive, annotated N. furzeri transcript catalogue and a first transcriptome-wide insight into N. furzeri ageing. This data will serve as a basis for future functional studies of ageing-related genes.
Highlights
The African annual fish Nothobranchius furzeri has over recent years been established as a model species for ageing-related studies
The lifespan of African N. furzeri populations is limited by the duration of the wet season, which lasts up to several months depending on location
To account for the different sets of raw sequence data, the transcriptome assembly was done in two steps: First, Sanger and 454/Roche reads were assembled with a classical overlap-layout-consensus strategy [12]
Summary
The African annual fish Nothobranchius furzeri has over recent years been established as a model species for ageing-related studies This is mainly based on its exceptionally short lifespan and the presence of typical characteristics of vertebrate ageing. The more recently isolated strain MZM-0403, originally collected in a humid habitat in Southern Mozambique (MZM), has a maximum lifespan of 25-32 weeks [7], which still is exceptionally short compared to other vertebrate species. Despite their short lifespan, the fish show typical ageingrelated phenotypes such as physiological / cognitive decay and expression of ageing-related biomarkers [10]
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