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Gene expression profiles of the swimming crab Portunus trituberculatus exposed to salinity stress

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Abstract

The swimming crab, Portunus trituberculatus, is an important marine fishery and aquaculture species. Although P. trituberculatus is a euryhaline species, water salinity condition influenced its distribution, migration route, and artificial propagations. To investigate gene expression in the P. trituberculatus exposed to different salinity stresses, 2426 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from gill cDNA library were selected to spot on a cDNA microarray chip. In total, 417 differentially expressed genes were identified and grouped into eight clusters by hierarchical clustering analysis. Approximately 71.5% of grouped genes belonged to three independent expression patterns, indicating that these three expression patterns may represent three important stress tolerance pathways or networks in P. trituberculatus. Moreover, our cDNA microarray data suggested that there were differences in gene expression patterns of P. trituberculatus for low salinity and high salinity acclimation, suggesting that two salinity challenges resulted in a wide variation of gene expression in P. trituberculatus. In addition, a series of genes such as CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein, Na/K ATPase β-subunit, and heat shock proteins (HSPs) genes were suggested to be key elements during salinity acclimation process. Overall, this work represented an important step toward understanding the molecular processes and mechanisms involved in salinity acclimation of the swimming crab.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported in part by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 30800840), and the Shanghai Young Rising Star of Science and Technology Program (grant no. 09QA1402600) to Qianghua Xu.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Key Laboratory of Sustainable Exploitation of Oceanic Fisheries Resources, Ministry of Education, College of Marine Sciences, Shanghai Ocean University, No. 999 Huchenghuan Road, Lingang New Harbor, Shanghai, 201306, People’s Republic of China

    Qianghua Xu & Yang Liu

  2. The Key Laboratory of Shanghai Education Commission for Oceanic Fisheries Resources Exploitation, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai, 201306, People’s Republic of China

    Qianghua Xu & Yang Liu

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  1. Qianghua Xu
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  2. Yang Liu
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Correspondence to Qianghua Xu.

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Communicated by S. Uthicke.

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Xu, Q., Liu, Y. Gene expression profiles of the swimming crab Portunus trituberculatus exposed to salinity stress. Mar Biol 158, 2161–2172 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-011-1721-8

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