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Adaptive evolution of osmoregulatory-related genes provides insight into salinity adaptation in Chinese mitten crab, Eriocheir sinensis

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Abstract

Osmoregulation is an important mechanism by which euryhaline crustaceans regulate osmotic and ionic concentrations. The Chinese mitten crab (Eriocheir sinensis) is a strong osmoregulating animal model among crustacean species, as it can maintain its hemolymph composition and survives well in either seawater or freshwater. Osmoregulation by E. sinensis during physiological adaptation has been studied extensively. However, the genetic basis of osmoregulation in E. sinensis for acclimating to changing salinities remains unclear. The current study investigated five genes involved in E. sinensis osmoregulation and compared them with a representative marine crab Portunus trituberculatus to test whether adaptive evolution has occurred changing salinity conditions. The results showed that carbonic anhydrase (CA), cytochrome P450 4C (CYP4C), glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH), and the Na+/H+ exchanger (NHE) have undergone positive selection (i.e., directional selection) in E. sinensis. Thus, the positive selection in CA and NHE suggests that E. sinensis has enhanced capacity for maintaining systemic acid-base balance and ion regulation. GDH and CYP4C also demonstrated positive selection in E. sinensis, suggesting that E. sinensis might have acquired an enhanced capacity to metabolize glutamate and synthesize ecdysteroids in response to a change in osmotic concentration. The present study provides new insight into the molecular genetic basis of salinity adaption in E. sinensis.

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Number 31702014), and Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant Number BK20171276), and Doctoral Scientific Research Foundation of Yancheng Teachers University to ZFW, and Open Foundation of Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Bioresources of Saline Soils (Grant Number JKLBS2016007).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Bioresources of Saline Soils, Jiangsu Synthetic Innovation Center for Coastal Bio-agriculture, Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Coastal Wetland Bioresources and Environmental Protection, School of Ocean and Biological Engineering, Yancheng Teachers University, Yancheng, 224001, Jiangsu, China

    Zhengfei Wang, Yuze Bai, Daizhen Zhang & Boping Tang

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  1. Zhengfei Wang
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  2. Yuze Bai
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  3. Daizhen Zhang
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  4. Boping Tang
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Contributions

ZFW and DZZ designed and conceived the experiment. BPT, ZFW and YZB performed the data analysis and draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript..

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Correspondence to Daizhen Zhang or Boping Tang.

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All the data were coming from GenBank. No animal was used.

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Figure S1

. The well-supported phylogenies of decapods used for selective pressure analysis in PAML. Numbers on branches indicate posterior probability (BI) and bootstrap (ML) (PDF 495 KB)

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Wang, Z., Bai, Y., Zhang, D. et al. Adaptive evolution of osmoregulatory-related genes provides insight into salinity adaptation in Chinese mitten crab, Eriocheir sinensis. Genetica 146, 303–311 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10709-018-0021-3

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