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Comparative transcriptome analysis of the gills of Procambarus clarkii provide novel insights into the response mechanism of ammonia stress tolerance

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Abstract

Procambarus clarkii is an important model crustacean organism in many researches. Ammonia nitrogen is one of common contaminants in aquatic environment, influencing the health of aquatic organisms. The primary objective of this study was to investigate molecular mechanisms on ammonia stress in gills of P. clarkii to provide new insights into the strategies of aquatic animals in responding to high concentration of ammonia in the environment. Procambarus clarkii were randomly assigned into two groups (ammonia stress group, AG; control group, CG), and gill samples were dependently excised from AG and CG. Then response mechanisms on ammonia stress were investigated based on transcriptome data of P. clarkii. 9237 differentially expressed genes were identified in ammonia stress group. The genes of ion transport enzymes (NKA and SLC6A5S) were significantly up-regulated. Whereas the immune-related genes (e.g. MAP3K7, HSP70, HSP90A, CTSF, CTSL1, CHI and CTL4) and pathways were significantly up-regulated, which played an important role in reacting to ammonia stress. Procambarus clarkii may enhance immune defense to counteract ammonia toxicity by the up-regulation of immune-related genes and signaling pathways. The activities of ion transport enzymes are changed to mobilise signal transduction and ion channel regulation for adapting to ammonia environment. These previous key genes play an important role in resistance to ammonia stress to better prepare for survival in high concentration of ammonia.

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Funding

This study was supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China to ZFW (Grant No. 31702014), Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory for Bioresources of Saline Soils Open Foundation to ZFW (Grant No. JKLBS2019006), and Doctoral Scientific Research Foundation of Yancheng Teachers University to ZFW.

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Author notes

  1. Chenchen Shen and Dan Tang have contributed equally to this study and regarded as co-first authors.

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 Wetlands, Yancheng Teachers University, Yancheng, 224001, Jiangsu, China

    Chenchen Shen, Dan Tang, Yuze Bai, Yaqi Luo, Lv Wu, Yiping Zhang & Zhengfei Wang

  2. College of Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Engineering, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211800, Jiangsu, China

    Dan Tang

  3. Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, A1C 5S7, Canada

    Yuze Bai

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  1. Chenchen Shen
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Investigation: ZFW, CCS and YQL; Data curation, CCS, DT and YQL, Funding acquisition, ZFW, Project administration, CCS and YQL, Resources, ZFW and DT; Software, CCS and YQL, Validation, WL and YPZ; Visualization, CCS and YQL, Writing—original draft, CCS, Writing—review and editing, CCS, DT and YZB. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhengfei Wang.

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Shen, C., Tang, D., Bai, Y. et al. Comparative transcriptome analysis of the gills of Procambarus clarkii provide novel insights into the response mechanism of ammonia stress tolerance. Mol Biol Rep 48, 2611–2618 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-021-06315-y

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