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Transcriptomic Analysis Revealed the Regulatory Mechanisms of Oocyte Maturation and Hydration in Orange-Spotted Grouper (Epinephelus coioides)

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Abstract

Oocyte maturation and hydration are regulated by a complex interplay of various hormones and local factors. We have investigated the morphological changes of follicles and serum steroid levels during the HCG (human choionic gonadotophin)-induced oocyte maturation in the orange-spotted grouper. For the first time, a large-scale transcriptomic analysis of follicles during the maturation has been conducted in a fish species which produce pelagic oocytes. Eight cDNA libraries of follicle samples, from full-grown immature follicles to mature follicles, were constructed. A total of 402,530,284 high-quality clean reads were obtained after filtering, 79.66% of which perfectly mapped to the orange-spotted grouper genome. Real-time PCR results of 12 representative genes related to oocyte maturation and hydration verified the reliability of the RNA-seq data. A large number of genes related to oocyte maturation and hydration were identified in the transcriptome dataset. And the transcriptomic analysis revealed the dynamic changes of the steroid synthesis pathway and the pathway of hydration during oocyte maturation. The present study will facilitate future study on the oocyte maturation and hydration in the orange-spotted grouper and other marine pelagic egg spawner.

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Data Availability

Raw sequencing data is available through the NCBI Sequence Read Archive under BioProject Accession number PRJNA517188.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Guangdong Daya Bay Fishery Development Center (Huizhou, Guangdong, China) for providing mature female orange-spotted groupers for this study, and Mr. Zeshu Yu for his assistance in collecting samples.

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31672631, No. 31572596), and Guangzhou Science and Technology Program (201804020013) and the open fund of Guangdong South China Sea Key Laboratory of Aquaculture for Aquatic Economic Animals (KFKT2019ZD07).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory for Aquatic Economic Animals and Guangdong Provincial Engineering Technology Research Center for Healthy Breeding of Important Economic Fish, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Lin Tang, Jiaxing Chen, Zhifeng Ye, Mi Zhao, Zining Meng, Haoran Lin, Shuisheng Li & Yong Zhang

  2. Guangdong South China Sea Key Laboratory of Aquaculture for Aquatic Economic Animals, Guangdong Ocean University, Zhanjiang, 524088, China

    Shuisheng Li

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  1. Lin Tang
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  2. Jiaxing Chen
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  3. Zhifeng Ye
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Contributions

HRL, SSL, and YZ conceived and designed the study; LT performed the experiments and bioinformatics analysis; JXC, ZFY, LT, MZ, and SSL worked for fish breeding and sample collecting. LT and SSL wrote the paper. All authors read the manuscript and approved the final version.

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Correspondence to Shuisheng Li or Yong Zhang.

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Tang, L., Chen, J., Ye, Z. et al. Transcriptomic Analysis Revealed the Regulatory Mechanisms of Oocyte Maturation and Hydration in Orange-Spotted Grouper (Epinephelus coioides). Mar Biotechnol 21, 537–549 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-019-09902-0

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