Project description:Low salinity is one of the main factors limiting the distribution and survival of marine species. As estuarine species, Crassostrea hongkongensis can live in relative low salinity. Through Illumina sequencing, we generated two transcriptomes with samples taken from gills of oysters exposed to the low salinity seawater versus the optimal seawater. By RNAseq technology, we found 13550 up-regulation genes and 9914 down-regulation genes that may regulate osmotic stress in C. hongkongensis. As blasted by GO annotation and KEGG pathway mapping, functional annotation of the genes recovered diverse biological functions and processes. The genes regulated significantly were dominated in structural molecule activity, intracellular,cytoplasm protein metabolism, biosynthesis,cell and transcription regulator activity according to GO annotation. The study aimed to compare the expression data of the two transcriptomes to provide some useful insights into signal transduction pathways in oysters and offer a number of candidate genes as potential markers of tolerance to hypoosmotic stress for oysters. In addition, the characterization of C. hongkongensis transcriptome will facilitate research into biological processes underlying physiological adaptations to hypoosmotic shock for marine invertebrates.
Project description:Low salinity is one of the main factors limiting the distribution and survival of marine species. As estuarine species, Crassostrea hongkongensis can live in relative low salinity. Through Illumina sequencing, we generated two transcriptomes with samples taken from gills of oysters exposed to the low salinity seawater versus the optimal seawater. By RNAseq technology, we found 13550 up-regulation genes and 9914 down-regulation genes that may regulate osmotic stress in C. hongkongensis. As blasted by GO annotation and KEGG pathway mapping, functional annotation of the genes recovered diverse biological functions and processes. The genes regulated significantly were dominated in structural molecule activity, intracellular,cytoplasm protein metabolism, biosynthesis,cell and transcription regulator activity according to GO annotation. The study aimed to compare the expression data of the two transcriptomes to provide some useful insights into signal transduction pathways in oysters and offer a number of candidate genes as potential markers of tolerance to hypoosmotic stress for oysters. In addition, the characterization of C. hongkongensis transcriptome will facilitate research into biological processes underlying physiological adaptations to hypoosmotic shock for marine invertebrates. Twelve oysters were exposed in low salinity (8‰) seawater and in optimal salinity (25‰) seawater,respectively. Gills from six oysters in each condition were balanced mixed respectively. The transcriptomes of two samples were generated by deep sequencing, using Illumina HiSeq2000
Project description:The interplay between phenotypic plasticity and adaptive evolution has long been an important topic of evolutionary biology. This process is critical to our understanding of a species evolutionary potential in light of rapid climate changes. Despite recent theoretical work, empirical studies of natural populations, especially in marine invertebrates, are scarce. In this study, we investigated the relationship between adaptive divergence and plasticity by integrating genetic and phenotypic variation in Pacific oysters from its natural range in China. Genome resequencing of 371 oysters revealed unexpected fine-scale genetic structure that is largely consistent with phenotypic divergence in growth, physiology, thermal tolerance and gene expression across environmental gradient. These findings suggest that selection and local adaptation are pervasive and together with limited gene flow shape adaptive divergence. Plasticity in gene expression is positively correlated with evolved divergence, indicating that plasticity is adaptive and likely favored by selection in organisms facing dynamic environments such as oysters. Divergence in heat response and tolerance implies that the evolutionary potential to a warming climate differs among oyster populations. We suggest that trade-offs in energy allocation are important to adaptive divergence with acetylation playing a role in energy depression under thermal stress.