Abstract
Luminous deep-sea etmopterid sharks use hormonal control to regulate bioluminescence. Melatonin and prolactin trigger light emission and, conversely, α-melanocyte stimulating hormone actively reduces ongoing luminescence. Interestingly, these hormones are also known as regulators of skin pigment motion in teleost fish and epipelagic elasmobranchs. On the other hand, the melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) is another regulator of the skin pigment motion in fish melanophores. Here, we studied the putative effect of MCH on the light emission control of the velvet belly lanternshark, Etmopterus spinax (Etmopteridae). In parallel, the presence of the MCH receptor in our model is investigated through database searches. Our results show that MCH is not involved in the bioluminescence triggering in the velvet belly lanternshark. Moreover, no MCH receptor transcript was found in a specific transcriptome of the luminous ventral skin of E. spinax.
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Data accessibility
The datasets during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
Authors would like to thank T. Sorlie from the Espegrend Marine Biological Station (University of Bergen, Norway) for the help during E. spinax collection. L.D. is Ph.D. student funded by a FRIA fellowship (F.R.S.-FNRS Belgium). J.D. is postdoctoral researcher at the University de Mons (UMONS) and he is supported by a WISD-PDR Grant from the National Funds for Research (F.R.S.-FNRS Belgium, Project number 29101409). J.M. is Research Associate of the F.R.S.-FNRS.
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This work was supported by a Grant from the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FRIA/F.R.S.-FNRS, Belgium) to L.D.
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LD performed, analysed and interpreted the pharmacological tests, performed transcriptome data analysis and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. JD performed transcriptome and phylogenetic analyses, contributed to and revised the manuscript. JM supervised the work, contributed to and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Duchatelet, L., Delroisse, J. & Mallefet, J. Melanin-concentrating hormone is not involved in luminescence emission in the velvet belly lanternshark, Etmopterus spinax. Mar Biol 166, 140 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-019-3590-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-019-3590-5