Suppressive subtractive hybridisation transcriptomics provides a novel insight into the functional role of the hypobranchial gland in a marine mollusc

Natural Product Research in the Australian Marine Invertebrate Dicathais orbita

“…Histochemical studies have confirmed the release of aryl sulfatase on the epithelium of the hypobranchial gland of D. orbita [14,18]. Preliminary analysis of the transcriptome from D. orbita hypobranchial gland was successful in detecting the aryl sulfatase gene [5,21,50] and full length sequencing has confirmed the molluscan origin of this enzyme [21]. No other biosynthetic genes were identified in this mollusc transcriptome library, although there is good support for a primary role of the hypobranchial gland in protein synthesis, post translational modification and transport [5,21,25,50].…”

“…Preliminary analysis of the transcriptome from D. orbita hypobranchial gland was successful in detecting the aryl sulfatase gene [5,21,50] and full length sequencing has confirmed the molluscan origin of this enzyme [21]. No other biosynthetic genes were identified in this mollusc transcriptome library, although there is good support for a primary role of the hypobranchial gland in protein synthesis, post translational modification and transport [5,21,25,50]. A large number of unidentified sequences were also present in the hyporbanchial gland transcriptome, suggesting possible novel genes, although the suppressive subtractive hybridization technique used only produces short reads, which may have reduced the chance of successful matches to conserved areas of the open reading frames.…”

“…This family of marine molluscs is well known for the production of the ancient dye Tyrian purple [1,2], which was the first marine natural product to be structurally elucidated by Friedlander in 1909 [3]. Over a century later, there remain major gaps in our knowledge of the ecological role and biosynthesis of this secondary metabolite [4,5]. However, significant progress has been made by Australian researchers over the last five decades [1,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15], thus providing a foundation for using D. orbita as model species in natural products research.…”

“…The taxonomy of this species is well resolved [45], as is its systematic position within the Rapaninae subfamily of Muricidae [46] and the Gastropoda [47,48,49] more broadly. Genetic information on this species is also accumulating [5,50], with preliminary genome sequencing currently underway. A significant transcriptome database exists for a related species of Rapaninae [51].…”

Domain repeats related to innate immunity in the South African abalone, Haliotis midae

“…In South Africa, abalone aquaculture is expanding rapidly, and consequently, it is of importance to analyse key genes that could be used to detect stress responses. Advances in sequencing technology have seen several transcriptomic reports on molluscs published recently (e.g., Feng et al, 2009;Sadamoto et al, 2012;Laffy et al, 2013). Recent studies have also revealed high diversity in gene families related to innate immunity in oysters (Crassostrea virginica and Crassostrea gigas) (De Longeril et al, 2011;Zhang et al, 2013).…”