The giant river prawn Macrobrachium rosenbergii is an important
aquaculture prawn, showing sexual dimorphism in growth, with males
growing much faster than females. However, the mechanisms controlling
these complex traits are not yet well understood. The nervous system
plays an important role in regulating life functions. This study aimed
to obtain and characterize the full-length transcriptomes of brain and
ganglion in female and male prawns by PacBio RNA sequencing. Based on
the result of PacBio sequencing, transcript’s functional annotation,
transcript factors, and simple sequence repeat analysis, long non-coding
RNAs (LncRNAs) and transposable element predictions were accomplished.
Total 159.1-Gb subreads were obtained and average length was 2,175 bp,
with 93.2% completeness. After clustering and polishing, 84,627 high
quality unigene sequences were produced and annotated by functional
databases. 6,367 transcript factors and 6,287 LncRNAs were predicted.
Illumina sequencing of brains and ganglia extracted from female and male
prawns was carried out. A significant number of differentially expressed
genes (DEGs) were found and confirmed by qRT-PCR analysis. Of the
related 435 genes in protein processing pathways in the endoplasmic
reticula, compared to females, 42 DEGs were detected, and 21/26 DEGs
with up-regulated expression in male prawn brain/ganglion. DEGs in this
pathway are likely to be regulated by multiple LncRNAs in polypeptide
folding and misfolded protein degradation in the different organs and
sexes of the prawn. Our study lays a foundation for understanding the
growth dimorphism controlled by nervous system, and is a valuable
resource for sex-controlled breeding of prawns in the future.