Comparative Transcriptome Profiling Reveals Insights Into the Mechanisms Related to Explosive Growth of Alexandrium pacificum

Abstract

Alexandrium pacificum is an organism that has an important impact on the aquaculture industry and human health. In this study, the digital gene expression approach was used to conduct a comparative analysis of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) that influence the explosive growth of A. pacificum following five treatment conditions: normal culture (C), high phosphorus and manganese (M), high irradiance (G), low phosphorus (P), and low nitrogen (N). Compared with the C conditions, a total of 265, 320, 185, and 150 DEGs were detected in the M, G, P, and N treatment groups, respectively. Clustering analysis suggested that A. pacificum acclimated to explosive growth using similar mechanisms in the M and G conditions. Analysis of DEGs showed that upregulation of genes associated with the pentose phosphate pathway and photosynthesis may contribute to explosive growth. Unigenes involved in the cell cycle were also found to be upregulated to promote cell division. The DEGs identified in this study may allow for the elucidation of molecular mechanisms responsible for the explosive growth of A. pacificum.

First insight into H3K4me3 modification in the rapid growth of Alexandrium pacificum (dinoflagellates)

“…However, knowledge of the intercellular mechanisms underlying the rapid growth of A. pacificum is limited. Previous studies have focused on the gene expression A. pacificum under different conditions through transcriptome technology (Zhang et al, 2014;Liu et al, 2021). Proteins related to environmental stress (nutrients, light, and temperature) at different growth stages of A. pacificum have also been identified, including, Sadenosylmethionine synthetase (AdoMetS), ribulose-1,5bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO), and heat shock proteins (HSPs)which are involved in macromolecular biosynthesis, photosynthesis, stress response, and cell cycle regulation (Uribe et al, 2008;Wang et al, 2012).…”

Calmodulin and Its Interactive Proteins Participate in Regulating the Explosive Growth of Alexandrium pacificum (Dinoflagellate)

“…As the final products of gene expression, a high dependency and specificity of proteins were found to vary with growth phases [ 35 ]. Liu et al (2006) discovered that the effect of different nutrient supply on the growth of P. donghaiense Lu involved the Ca 2+ /CaM signal transduction pathway, which suggested that nutrient can regulate marine phytoplankton interaction with the environment through Ca 2+ /CaM signal pathway [ 36 ]. The full cDNA sequence of the cam gene in A. pacificum has been cloned.…”

“…The cam transcription abundance increases more than eight-fold from the lag phase to the exponential phase [ 22 ]. The cam gene was also found to be upregulated during the explosive growth process of A. pacificum via a digital gene expression profiling analysis [ 36 ].…”