Project description:Genomic analysis of saline-tolerant Nile tilapia strain shows signatures of selection and introgression from blue tilapia (Oreochromis aureus)
Project description:Cichlids fishes exhibit extensive phenotypic diversification and speciation. In this study we integrate transcriptomic and proteomic signatures from two cichlids species, identify novel open reading frames (nORFs) and perform evolutionary analysis on these nORF regions. We embark comparative transrcriptomics and proteogenomic analysis of two metabolically active tissues, the testes and liver, of two cichlid species Oreochromis niloticus (Nile tilapia, ON) and Pundamilia nyererei (Makobe Island, PN). Our results suggest that the time scale of speciation of the two species can be better explained by the evolutionary divergence of these nORF genomic regions.
Project description:Purpose: The goal of this study was to assess the differential gene expression between control and leptin treated pituitary rostral pars distalis' of the tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus). Methods: Pituitary mRNA profiles from control (PBS) and leptin (100nM) treated tilapia (Oreochromis mossambicus) pituitary rostral pars disatalis were generated by deep sequencing using Illumina MiSeq. The sequence reads that passed quality filters were analyzed at the transcript abundance level using ANOVA (ANOVA) and BowTie2 followed by Cufflinks. Results: Differential gene expression identified 1995 genes that were differentially expressed in the pituitary rostral pars distalis treated with leptin compared to PBS treated controls. These genes were indicated to be functionally involved in numerous biological processes including glycolyiss. Conclusions: Our study represents the first detailed pituitary rostral pars distalis transcriptomes in the tilapia and identifies leptin as a major stimulator of glycolysis at the cellular level in teleost fishes.