Transcriptomic analysis of Procambarus clarkii affected by “Black May” disease

Abstract

Each year from April to May, high mortality rates are reported in red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) cultured in Jiangsu and other regions, in China, and this phenomenon has come to be known as “Black May” disease (BMD). Therefore, in order to investigate the possible causes of this disease, this study gathered BMD-affected P. clarkii samples and performed transcriptome analysis on hepatopancreas, gill, and muscle tissues. A total of 19,995,164, 149,212,804, and 222,053,848 clean reads were respectively obtained from the gills, muscle, and hepatopancreas of BMD-affected P. clarkii, and 114,024 unigenes were identified. The number of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in gill, muscle, and hepatopancreas was 1703, 964, and 476, respectively. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses of the DEGs were then conducted. Based on KEGG pathway enrichment analysis, the most significantly differentially expressed pathways were mainly those involved with metabolism, human disease, and cellular processes. Further analysis of the significantly DEGs revealed that they were mainly related to the mitochondrial-mediated apoptosis pathway and that the expression of these DEGs was mostly down-regulated. Moreover, the expression of genes related to immune and metabolism-related pathways was also significantly down-regulated, and these significantly-inhibited pathways were the likely causes of P. clarkii death. Therefore, our results provide a basis for the identification of BMD causes.

Comparative transcriptome analysis of noble crayfish and marbled crayfish immune response to Aphanomyces astaci challenges

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Microbiome analysis reveals microecological advantages of emerging ditchless rice-crayfish co-culture mode

“…Since ditches occupy a large area of paddy fields, they are not suitable for promotion in hilly areas with little land resources and narrow areas, which leads to the concentration of farming areas mainly in plain regions (Hou et al, 2021). Furthermore, deposition of feed residues and aquatic animal excreta may also lead to environmental stress in ditch-farmed rice-crayfish co-culture systems, resulting in high mortality during the hot season (Cao et al, 2017;Shen et al, 2020). Due to the problems posed by ditches, an emerging model of farming, ditchless ricecrayfish co-culture, has been proposed and implemented in recent years.…”

Host-pathogen coevolution drives innate immune response to Aphanomyces astaci infection in freshwater crayfish: transcriptomic evidence

“…It also serves as a source for immune molecules, which can be released from the epithelial cells into the haemocoel sinusoids, allowing for their rapid distribution in the haemolymph of the crayfish [33]. In recent years, the involvement of the hepatopancreas in the response to various disease and environmental factors has been highlighted in crustaceans [36][37][38][39][40]. However, its role in the immune response to A. astaci infection has not been clearly defined.…”