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Differential Transcriptomic and Metabolomic Responses in the Liver of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) Exposed to Acute Ammonia

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Abstract

Ammonia is toxic to aquatic animal. Currently, only limited works were reported on the responses of aquatic animals after ammonia exposure using “omics” technologies. Tilapia suffers from the stress of ammonia-nitrogen during intensive recirculating aquaculture. Optimizing ammonia stress tolerance has become an important issue in tilapia breeding. The molecular and biochemical mechanisms of ammonia-nitrogen toxicity have not been understood comprehensively in tilapia yet. In this study, using RNA-seq and gas chromatograph system coupled with a Pegasus HT time-of-flight mass spectrometer (GC-TOF-MS) techniques, we investigated differential expressed genes (DEGs) and metabolomes in the liver at 6 h post-challenges (6 hpc) and 24 h post-challenges (24 hpc) under high concentration of ammonia-nitrogen treatment. We detected 2258 DEGs at 6 hpc and 315 DEGs at 24 hpc. Functional enrichment analysis indicated that DEGs were significantly associated with cholesterol biosynthesis, steroid and lipid metabolism, energy conservation, and mitochondrial tissue organization. Metabolomic analysis detected 31 and 36 metabolites showing significant responses to ammonia-nitrogen stress at 6 and 24 hpc, respectively. D-(Glycerol 1-phosphate), fumaric acid, and L-malic acid were found significantly down-regulated at both 6 and 24 hpc. The integrative analysis of transcriptomics and metabolomics suggested considerable alterations and precise control of gene expression at both physiological and molecular levels in response to the stress of ammonia-nitrogen in tilapia.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Program of Guangzhou, China (No. 201804020013, 201803020043), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31572612), and the Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong Province, China (2017A030303008).

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  1. State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, Institute of Aquatic Economic Animals and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Aquatic Economic Animals, College of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, 510275, Guangzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Zong Xian Zhu, Dan Li Jiang, Bi Jun Li, Hui Qin, Zi Ning Meng, Hao Ran Lin & Jun Hong Xia

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  1. Zong Xian Zhu
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JHX and HRL contributed to project conception. Experiment and data analysis were conducted by ZXZ, DLJ, BJL, HQ, and ZNM. The manuscript was prepared by JHX and ZXZ. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jun Hong Xia.

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Supplementary Figure 1

qRT-PCR validation of the differential expression profiles for the randomly selected DEGs in liver samples after ammonia-nitrogen treatment. Ef1a was used as reference gene. All expression values for each selected DEG were normalized to the values of the gene in the liver samples of the control group. The bars indicated the mean value for three biological replicates. Significant level: *, p < 0.05 and **, p < 0.01 (PNG 522 kb)

High-resolution image (TIF 802 kb)

Supplementary Figure 2

qRT-PCR validation of the differential expression profiles for the DEGs in the “cholesterol biosynthesis” pathway. Ef1a was used as reference gene. All expression values for each selected DEG were normalized to the values of the gene in the liver samples of the control group. The bars indicated the mean value for three biological replicates. Significant level: *, p < 0.05 and **, p < 0.01 (PNG 537 kb)

High-resolution image (TIF 685 kb)

Supplementary Table 1

The qRT PCR primer list for evaluation of the gene expression profiles in the liver samples (XLSX 14 kb)

Supplementary Table 2

The summary information for the DEGs at 6 hpc identified in the liver samples in response to acute ammonia-nitrogen stress (XLSX 284 kb)

Supplementary Table 3

The summary information for the DEGs at 24 hpc identified in the liver samples in response to acute ammonia-nitrogen stress (XLSX 49 kb)

Supplementary Table 4

The summary information for the common DEGs at 6 and 24 hpc identified in the liver samples in response to acute ammonia-nitrogen stress (XLSX 33 kb)

Supplementary Table 5

Functional annotation of the DEGs identified in the liver samples at 6 hpc in response to acute ammonia-nitrogen stress (XLSX 111 kb)

Supplementary Table 6

Functional annotation of the DEGs identified in the liver samples at 24 hpc in response to acute ammonia-nitrogen stress (XLSX 38 kb)

Supplementary Table 7

Functional annotation of the overlapped DEGs identified in the liver samples at 6 and 24 hpc in response to acute ammonia-nitrogen stress (XLSX 32 kb)

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Zhu, Z.X., Jiang, D.L., Li, B.J. et al. Differential Transcriptomic and Metabolomic Responses in the Liver of Nile Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) Exposed to Acute Ammonia. Mar Biotechnol 21, 488–502 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-019-09897-8

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