Evaluation of two extant population sources of Clarias macrocephalus using liver transcriptomic profiles towards reintroduction

Abstract

There is a need to evaluate and choose a possible population source of the threatened catfish Clarias macrocephalus for possible reintroduction into aquaculture. Identifying gene transcription profiles that provide fitness benefits in specific environments would promote more effective species reintroduction and conservation practices. In this study, comparison of hepatic transcriptome profiles was made in terms of expression patterns of various growth-, immune-and reproduction-related genes of two Clarias macrocephalus strains from Cagayan (CmC) and Agusan del Sur (CmA), located in the Northern and Southern Philippines, respectively. RNA sequencing results showed that there were 13,138 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) identified in CmA vs. CmC, of which 6,795 DEGs exhibited significant upregulation while 6,343 DEGs displayed significant downregulation. From this pool of DEGs, numerous immune-(complements C3, C4, C7), growth-(glutamine synthetase, GLUL; glycogen synthase, GYS; elongation of very long chain fatty acids protein 6, ELOVL6, lipoprotein lipase, LPL) and reproduction-related (vitellogenin, VTG; cytochrome p450 19b-like, CYP19b; progesterone receptor, PGR) genes were identified. Pathway enrichment analysis revealed the enrichment of the complement component and coagulation cascades, protein digestion and absorption and lipid metabolism pathways. Results of this study indicated that when reintroduction was to be done, C. macrocephalus population from Agusan Marsh is predicted to grow much faster because of up-regulated growth-related genes, to be more resistant to pathogens/environmental stressor as it manifested upregulated immune-related genes and to reproduce better as reflected by its upregulated reproduction-related genes than its counterpart catfish from Cagayan.The IJA is a peer-reviewed open-access, electronic journal, freely available without charge to users -Produced by the AquacultureHub non-profit Foundation Sale of IJA papers is strictly forbidden 2 Ariñes et al.

Benfotiamine in high carbohydrate diet enhances growth and reproductive performance of the Asian native catfish Clarias macrocephalus subadults

“…Santos et al (2015) have claimed that the remaining populations could only be found in two regions in the Philippines, namely Agusan del Sur in the southern and Cagayan Valley in the northern Philippines; however, we have recently confirmed that a third source of Clarias macrocephalus exists in Palawan, located at western central Philippines. Arinez et al (2020) compared the two populations from Agusan del Sur and those from Cagayan valley through transcriptomics as a preliminary assessment of a possible source of population for reintroduction. They observed that those from Agusan del Sur were better than those in the Cagayan Valley in terms of differentially expressed growth-, immuneand reproduction-related genes.…”