ABSTRACT: Research using the oyster Crassostrea gigas as a model has experienced a rapid growth in recent years thanks to the development of high throughput molecular technologies. As many as 56,268 EST sequences have so far been sequenced, representing a genome-wide resource that can be used for microarray investigations. We have developed an oyster microarray containing cDNAs representing 31,918 unique transcribed sequences. The genes spotted on the array have been selected from the publicly accessible GigasDatabase established from cDNA libraries derived from a wide variety of tissues and different developmental stages. n this paper, we report the transcriptome of male and female gonads, mantle, gills, posterior adductor muscle, visceral ganglion, hemocytes, labial palps and digestive gland. Following validation of the microarray, statistical analyses were used to identify genes differentially expressed among tissues and define clusters of tissue-specific genes. These genes reflect well major tissue-specific functions at the molecular level. Analysis of hierarchical clustering data also predicted the involvement of un-annotated genes in selected functional pathways. In a second instance, microarray data were used to accurately select housekeeping genes common to all tissues. Their expression profiles was compared to common oyster standard genes used for quantitative RT-PCR calibration (actin, g3apdh and ef1α). The novel candidate housekeeping gene, adp-ribosylation factor 1 (arf1) and g3apdh gene seem to be more robust for normalizing gene expression data of tissues. This study provides a new source for annotating the oyster genome. It also identified new candidate housekeeping genes, a prerequisite for accurate quantitative RT-PCR expression profiling. Gene expression was measured in 9 tissues: Female gonad, male gonad, mantle, gills, posterior adductor muscle, visceral ganglion, hemocytes, labial palps, digestive gland.Three to four biological replicates were analysed per tissue. These were from distinct animals for female gonad, male gonad, mantle, gills, posterior adductor muscle, labial palps and digestive glands, or obtained from a pool of 6 individuals for hemocytes and visceral ganglion.
