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Comprehensive Transcriptome Analysis of Gonadal and Somatic Tissues for Identification of Sex-Related Genes in the Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides

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Abstract

Largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) is an economically important fish. It can spawn many times during a breeding season, and there are no obvious morphological characteristics to distinguish male and female juvenile fish. So far, little is known about the genes regulating their sexual development in this species. Here, we performed RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) analysis of the testis, ovary, and somatic tissue to identify sex-related genes in the largemouth bass. A total of 51,672 unigenes were obtained via the transcriptome analysis, and 5900 differential expression genes (DEGs), including 3028 up-regulated and 2872 down-regulated DEGs, were obtained in the somatic tissue, testis, and ovary. DEGs were retrieved by making comparisons: somatic tissue vs testis (1733-up and 1382-down), testis vs ovary (841-up and 807-down), and ovary vs somatic tissue (454-up and 683-down). Finally, functional annotation identified 22 key sex-related DEGs, including 13 testis-biased DEGs (dmrt1, cyp11b1, sox9, spata4, spata22, spata17, fshr, fem-1a, wt1, daz1, amh, vasa, and piwi1) and 9 ovary-biased DEGs (foxl2, gdf9, zp3, sox3, cyp19a, bmp15, fem-1b, fig. la, and piwi2). This result was further confirmed by the tissue expression detection via RT-PCR and RT-qPCR. Protein–protein interacting (PPI) network analysis revealed that the testis-specific dmrt1 interacts directly with the testis-biased DEGs (cyp11b1 and spata4) and the ovary-biased DEGs (foxl2, gdf9, zp3, sox3, cyp19a, and bmp15), suggesting that the dmrt1 as a sex-determining gene can play a dual role through inducing the testis-biased DEGs and inhibiting the ovary-biased DEGs during the testicular development. Our present results provide useful molecular data for a better understanding of sexual development in the largemouth bass.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Mr. Hui-Ren Qian, the manager of Shanghai Blue Sea Aquaculture Farm, for kindly providing the fish samples, and Shanghai OE Biotech for the help in analysis of the sequencing data.

Funding

Key Technologies Research and Development Program, 2018YFD0900201, Gao-Feng Qiu.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Freshwater Aquatic Genetic Resources, Ministry of AgricultureShanghai Engineering Research Center of AquaculturePudong New Area, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Fisheries Science Education, Shanghai Ocean University, 999 Huchenghuan Road, Shanghai, 201306, China

    Wen-Zhi Guan, Kai Jiang, Xing-Lin Lai, Yao-Ting Dong & Gao-Feng Qiu

  2. Institute of Hydrobiology, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Zhejiang, China

    Wen-Zhi Guan

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  1. Wen-Zhi Guan
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Contributions

Wen-Zhi Guan collected fish samples, analyzed the data and wrote the paper. Kai Jiang performed the experiments, analyzed the data and revised the manuscript. Xing-Lin Lai helped to perform the experiments. Yao-Ting Dong helped to analyze partial data. Gao-Feng Qiu conceived the experiments and finished the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Gao-Feng Qiu.

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Guan, WZ., Jiang, K., Lai, XL. et al. Comprehensive Transcriptome Analysis of Gonadal and Somatic Tissues for Identification of Sex-Related Genes in the Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides. Mar Biotechnol 24, 588–598 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-022-10127-x

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