Cardiac transcriptomic shifts during first 24h of thermal acclimation in the porcelain crab, Petrolisthes cinctipes
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ABSTRACT: Intertidal zone organisms can experience transient freezing temperatures during winter low tides, but their extreme cold tolerance mechanisms are not known. Petrolisthes cinctipes is a temperate mid-high intertidal zone crab species that can experience wintertime habitat temperatures below the freezing point of seawater. We examined how cold tolerance changed during the initial phase of thermal acclimation to cold and warm temperatures, as well as the persistence of cold tolerance during long-term thermal acclimation. Thermal acclimation for as little as 6 hours at 8˚C enhanced crab tolerance during a 1h exposure to -2°C relative to crabs acclimated to 18˚C. Potential mechanisms for this enhanced tolerance were elucidated using cDNA microarrays to probe for differences in gene expression in cardiac tissue of warm and cold acclimated crabs during the first day of thermal acclimation. No changes in gene expression were detected until 12h of thermal acclimation. Genes strongly upregulated in warm acclimated crabs represented immune response and extracellular / intercellular processes, suggesting that warm acclimated crabs had a generalized stress response and may have been remodelling tissues or altering intercellular processes. Genes strongly upregulated in cold acclimated crabs included many that are involved in glucose production suggesting that cold acclimation involves increasing intracellular glucose as a cryoprotectant. Structural cytoskeletal proteins were also strongly represented among the genes upregulated in only cold acclimated crabs. There were no consistent changes in composition or the level of unsaturation of membrane phospholipid fatty acids with cold acclimation, which suggests that neither short- nor long-term changes in cold tolerance are mediated by changes in membrane fatty acid composition. Overall, our study demonstrates that initial changes in cold tolerance are likely not regulated by transcriptomic responses, but that gene expression-related changes in homeostasis begin within 12 hours – the length of a tidal cycle. all array data and raw images archived at the Porcelain Crab Array Database (http://array.sfsu.edu)
ORGANISM(S): Petrolisthes cinctipes
PROVIDER: GSE35307 | GEO | 2012/03/01
SECONDARY ACCESSION(S): PRJNA150739
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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