Abstract
BackgroundMolting is an essential biological process throughout the life history of crustaceans, which is regulated by many neuropeptide hormones expressed in the eyestalk. To better understand the molting mechanism in Portunus trituberculatus, we used digital gene expression (DGE) to analyze single eyestalk samples during the molting cycle by high-throughput sequencing.ResultsWe obtained 14,387,942, 12,631,508 and 13,060,062 clean sequence reads from inter-molt (InM), pre-molt (PrM) and post-molt (PoM) cDNA libraries, respectively. A total of 1,394 molt-related differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified. GO and KEGG enrichment analysis identified some important processes and pathways with key roles in molting regulation, such as chitin metabolism, peptidase inhibitor activity, and the ribosome. We first observed a pattern associated with the neuromodulator-related pathways during the molting cycle, which were up-regulated in PrM and down-regulated in PoM. Four categories of important molting-related transcripts were clustered and most of them had similar expression patterns, which suggests that there is a connection between these genes throughout the molt cycle.ConclusionOur work is the first molt-related investigation of P. trituberculatus focusing on the eyestalk at the whole transcriptome level. Together, our results, including DEGs, identification of molting-related biological processes and pathways, and observed expression patterns of important genes, provide a novel insight into the function of the eyestalk in molting regulation.
Highlights
Molting is an essential biological process occurring multiple times throughout the life history of crustaceans, and is essential for development, growth, and reproduction [1, 2]
We first observed a pattern associated with the neuromodulator-related pathways during the molting cycle, which were up-regulated in PrM and down-regulated in PoM
Many regulatory neuropeptides and neuropeptide receptors and other crucial genes pertaining to molting have been identified, including molt-inhibiting hormone (MIH), crustacean hyperglycemic hormone (CHH), retinoid X receptor and ecdysteroid receptor (EcR) [4,5,6,7,8], cuticlerelated enzymes [9,10,11], and structural proteins of the cuticle [12, 13]
Summary
Molting is an essential biological process occurring multiple times throughout the life history of crustaceans, and is essential for development, growth, and reproduction [1, 2]. Crustaceans experience rhythmic molting cycles that contain three main stages, inter-molt (InM), pre-molt (PrM), and post-molt (PoM), that are based on morphological and microstructure observations. A possible signaling pathway in molting regulation has been proposed, which includes triggering and summation phases, and involves the decapod crustacean molting gland [3]. Molting is an essential biological process throughout the life history of crustaceans, which is regulated by many neuropeptide hormones expressed in the eyestalk. To better understand the molting mechanism in Portunus trituberculatus, we used digital gene expression (DGE) to analyze single eyestalk samples during the molting cycle by high-throughput sequencing
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