Cr (VI), the pathogenicity factor, is widely known to cause toxic effects in living organisms. Given the economic importance of the mantis shrimp ( Oratosquilla oratoria), the understanding of impacts by Cr (VI) is considered important. In this study, transcriptome of mantis shrimp was characterized by a comparison between control and Cr (VI)-treated samples using RNA-seq approach. Totally, 88 234 826 bp and 13.24G clean reads were obtained. The total length and number of unigenes were 68 411 206 bp and 100 918, respectively. The maximal and average length of unigenes was 24 906 bp and 678 bp, respectively (N50, 798 bp). 7115 of these unigenes accounted for 7.05% of the total that were annotated in all databases. After annotation of assembled unigenes, 35 619 of them were assigned into 3 functional categories and 56 subcategories using Gene Ontology; 18 580 of them were assigned into 26 functional categories using Clusters of Orthologous Groups of proteins; 16 864 of them were assigned into 5 major categories and 32 subclasses using KEGG. Finally, 1730 genes were differentially expressed (DGEs), 9 up-regulated pathways (protein digestion and absorption, neuroactive ligand-receptor interaction, pancreatic secretion, tyrosine metabolism, amoebiasis, ECM-receptor interaction, riboflavin metabolism, amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism and AGE-RAGE signaling pathway in diabetic complications) were significantly enriched ( q < 0.05), and one down-regulated pathway ( Staphylococcus aureus infection) was significantly enriched ( q < 0.05). Up-regulation of genes in pathways of protein digestion/absorption ( PepT1/SLC15A and ATP1B) and environment information processing ( COL1AS, COL4A; LAMA3_5, LAMB3; FN1 and TN) may imply the potentially positive toxicity resistance mechanisms.
Keywords: chromium stress; differential expression; mantis shrimp; transcriptome.