Tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) do not survive well at low temperatures. Therefore, improvement of the low-temperature resistance has become an important issue for aquaculture development of tilapia. The objective of this study was to construct a digital gene expression tag profile to identify genes potentially related to low temperature in tilapia. In this study, tilapia was treated at 30°C to lethal temperature 10°C in decrement of 1°CD(-1). Digital gene expression analysis was performed using the Illumina technique to investigate differentially expressed genes in tilapia cultured at different temperatures (30°C, 26°C, 20°C, 16°C, and 10°C). A total of 206,861, 188,082, 185,827, 188,067, and 214,171 distinct tags were obtained by sequencing these five libraries, respectively. Compared with the 30°C library, there were 304, 407, 709, and 772 upregulated genes and 342, 793, 771, and 1466 downregulated genes in 26°C, 20°C, 16°C, and 10°C libraries, respectively. Trend analysis of these differentially expressed genes identified six statistically significant trends. Functional annotation analysis of the differentially expressed genes identified various functions associated with the response to low-temperature stress. When tilapia are subjected to low-temperature stress, expression changes were observed in genes associated with nucleic acid synthesis and metabolism, amino acid metabolism and protein synthesis, lipid and carbohydrate content and types, material transport, apoptosis, and immunity. The differentially expressed genes obtained in this study may provide useful insights to help further understand the effects of low temperature on tilapia.
Keywords: Digital gene expression; Low-temperature stress; Tilapia.
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