文献类型： 外文期刊

作者： Chi, Yong ¹ ; Mukiibi, Robert ² ; Zhang, Hongxiang ⁴ ; Zhang, Haien ⁴ ; Li, Weidong ⁴ ; Robledo, Diego ² ; Chen, Songlin ¹ ; Li, Yangzhen ¹ ;

作者机构： 1.Chinese Acad Fishery Sci, Yellow Sea Fisheries Res Inst, State Key Lab Mariculture Biobreeding & Sustainab, Qingdao 266071, Peoples R China

2.Univ Edinburgh, Roslin Inst, Edinburgh EH25 9RG, Scotland

3.Univ Edinburgh, Royal Dick Sch Vet Studies, Edinburgh EH25 9RG, Scotland

4.Tangshan Haidu Seafood Co Ltd, Tangshan 063506, Peoples R China

5.Tangshan Acad Agr Sci, Fishery Res Inst, Tangshan 063001, Peoples R China

6.Univ Santiago De Compostela, Dept Genet, Santiago De Compostela 15706, Spain

关键词： fugu; RNA-seq; immune response; parasite; aquaculture

期刊名称：ANIMALS （ 影响因子：2.7； 五年影响因子：3.0 ）

ISSN： 2076-2615

年卷期： 2024 年 14 卷 14 期

页码：

收录情况： SCI

摘要： The tiger pufferfish (Takifugu rubripes), also known as fugu, has recently suffered from severe C. irritans infections under aquaculture environment, yet the underlying immune mechanisms against the parasite remain poorly understood. In this study, we conducted a comprehensive transcriptome analysis of the gill tissue from infected and uninfected fish using PacBio long-read (one pooled sample each for seriously infected and healthy individuals, respectively) and Illumina short-read (three pools for mildly infected, seriously infected, and healthy individuals, respectively) RNA sequencing technologies. After aligning sequence data to fugu's reference genome, 47,307 and 34,413 known full-length transcripts were identified and profiled in healthy and infected fish, respectively. Similarly, we identified and profiled 1126 and 803 novel genes that were obtained from healthy and infected fish, respectively. Interestingly, we found a decrease in the number of alternative splicing (AS) events and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) after infection with C. irritans, suggesting that they may be involved in the regulation of the immune response in fugu. There were 687 and 1535 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in moderately and heavily infected fish, respectively, compared to uninfected fish. Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) analyses showed that immune-related DEGs in the two comparison groups were mainly enriched in cytokine-cytokine receptor interactions, ECM-receptor interactions, T-cell receptor signaling pathways, Th1 and Th2 cell differentiation, and Th17 cell differentiation pathways. Further analysis revealed that a large number of immune-related genes were downregulated in infected fish relative to uninfected ones, such as CCR7, IL7R, TNFRSF21, CD4, COL2A1, FOXP3B, and ITGA8. Our study suggests that C. irritans is potentially a highly efficient parasite that may disrupt the defense mechanisms of fugu against it. In addition, in combination of short-read RNA sequencing and previous genome-wide association analyses, we identified five key genes (NDUFB6, PRELID1, SMOX, SLC25A4, and DENND1B) that might be closely associated with C. irritans resistance. This study not only provides valuable resources of novel genic transcripts for further research, but also provides new insights into the immune mechanisms underlying C. irritans infection response in farmed fugu.