Project description:The mechanisms of heavy metal accumulation in primary producers and the damage and stress response induced by heavy metals is not well understood. We used UHTS to analyze the transcriptomic response of Elodea nuttallii to heavy metal pollution. We exposed shoots of E. nuttallii for 24 h to increasing concentrations of Hg and Cd. Using Illumina RNA-Seq, we have generated over 50 million 54 nt paired end reads and 14 million single end reads, which we used for de novo assembly of the E. nuttallii transcriptome.
Project description:The mechanisms of metal accumulation and toxicity in primary producers are not well understood. In a previous study (deposited in ArrayExpress archive under accession E-MTAB-892), we generated a dataset giving a fist insight into transcriptomic response of the aquatic macrophyte Elodea nuttallii to Hg and Cd exposure. In the present study we aimed to extend this investigation to different Hg-species, dose-response effects and multiple stress exposure. We therefore investigated the transcriptomic response of Elodea nuttallii to Hg, methyl-Hg, Cu and ultraviolet-B (UV-B) exposure. We applied different concentrations of Hg and methyl-Hg in order to study dose-response effects. Combined exposures of Hg and UV-B were conducted in order to assess interaction effects of multiple factors. Plants were exposed up to 24 h, RNA was extracted using Tri reagent, libraries prepared according to Illumina standard protocols and sequencing was done on Illumina HiSeq 2000. After quality check, raw sequence reads were assembled into contigs. About 160 Mbp assembled sequence information were generated in this study.
