Gene expression profile analysis of testis and ovary of oriental river prawn, Macrobrachium nipponense, reveals candidate reproduction-related genes

Abstract

This study utilized high-throughput RNA sequencing technology to identify reproduction- and development-related genes of Macrobrachium nipponense by analyzing gene expression profiles of testis and ovary. More than 20 million 1 x 51-bp reads were obtained by Illumina sequencing, generating more than 7.7 and 11.7 million clean reads in the testis and ovary library, respectively. As a result, 10,018 unitags were supposed to be differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between ovary and testis. Compared to the ovary library, 4563 (45.5%) of these DEGs exhibited at least 6-fold upregulated expression, while 5455 (54.5%) DEGs exhibited at least 2-fold downregulated expression in the testis. The Gene Ontology (GO) enrichment analysis showed that 113 GO terms had potential molecular functions in reproduction. The Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes results revealed that the most important pathways may be relevant to reproduction and included 7 pathways. Forty-two genes were identified as reproduction-, development-, and sex-related genes based on GO classification and sequence comparison with other publications, including male reproductive-related LIM protein, spermatogenesis-associated protein, gametocyte-specific factor 1, VASA-like protein, vitellogenin, sex-determining protein fem-1, and other potential candidates. These results will advance research in the field of molecular genetics in M. nipponense and offer a valuable resource for further research related to reproduction in crustaceans.