De novo transcriptome assembly from the gonads of a scleractinian coral, Euphyllia ancora : molecular mechanisms underly
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Open Access
De novo transcriptome assembly from the gonads of a scleractinian coral, Euphyllia ancora: molecular mechanisms underlying scleractinian gametogenesis Yi-Ling Chiu1,2, Shinya Shikina3,4*, Yuki Yoshioka5, Chuya Shinzato5* and Ching-Fong Chang4,6*
Abstract Background: Sexual reproduction of scleractinians has captured the attention of researchers and the general public for decades. Although extensive ecological data has been acquired, underlying molecular and cellular mechanisms remain largely unknown. In this study, to better understand mechanisms underlying gametogenesis, we isolated ovaries and testes at different developmental phases from a gonochoric coral, Euphyllia ancora, and adopted a transcriptomic approach to reveal sex- and phase-specific gene expression profiles. In particular, we explored genes associated with oocyte development and maturation, spermiogenesis, sperm motility / capacitation, and fertilization. Results: 1.6 billion raw reads were obtained from 24 gonadal samples. De novo assembly of trimmed reads, and elimination of contigs derived from symbiotic dinoflagellates (Symbiodiniaceae) and other organisms yielded a reference E. ancora gonadal transcriptome of 35,802 contigs. Analysis of 4 developmental phases identified 2023 genes that were differentially expressed during oogenesis and 678 during spermatogenesis. In premature/mature ovaries, 631 genes were specifically upregulated, with 538 in mature testes. Upregulated genes included those involved in gametogenesis, gamete maturation, sperm motility / capacitation, and fertilization in other metazoans, including humans. Meanwhile, a large number of genes without homology to sequences in the SWISS-PROT database were also observed among upregulated genes in premature / mature ovaries and mature testes. (Continued on next page)
* Correspondence: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] 3 Institute of Marine Environment and Ecology, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung, Taiwan 5 Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, Chiba 277-8564, Japan 4 Center of Excellence for the Oceans, National Taiwan Ocean University, 2 Pei-Ning Rd, Keelung 20224, Taiwan Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2020 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain
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