Gene expression patterns of sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus intermedius) exposed to different combinations of temperature and hypoxia

Sea Urchins in Acute High Temperature and Low Oxygen Environments: The Regulatory Role of microRNAs in Response to Environmental Stress

“…According to the changes in temperature and dissolved oxygen in the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Sea in the past ten years (Song et al, 2020) and previous experiments (Hao et al, 2022), this study selected 25°C and 2 mg/L oxygen as the conditions of temperature and hypoxia stress. Healthy S. intermedius were randomly cultured in high temperature (HT group, 25 °C, 8 mg/L O 2 ), low oxygen (LO group, 15 °C, 2 mg/L O 2 ), combined stress of heat and hypoxia (HL group, 25 °C, 2 mg/L O 2 ) and control group (NC group, 15 °C, 8 mg/L O 2 ), using 6 S. intermedius per group.…”

“…The temperature control system's temperature deviation was less than 0.5 °C, and the oxygen concentration deviation of the dissolved oxygen control system was less than 0.5 mg/L (Huo et al, 2018). Previous experiments showed that individuals died at 12 hours of combined stress, and transcriptome sequencing revealed significant changes in genes related to sea urchin immunity and metabolism at 12 hours of acute stress (Hao et al, 2022). Therefore, we selected 12 h as the time of stress.…”

“…Very high summer temperatures and depleting aquaculture resources lead to hypoxic conditions that can be fatal or sublethal for sea urchins and can cause mass mortality (Riedel et al, 2014). Under hypoxic stress, significant changes in the oxygen consumption rate (Tomi et al, 2011) and the expression of immune and metabolic-related genes were found to occur in sea urchins (Suh et al, 2014;Hao et al, 2022). Therefore, hypoxia is another important factor that limits the survival and growth of sea urchins.…”

“…Multiple environmental factors can affect organisms in natural environments. In a previous study (Hao et al, 2022), we performed transcriptome-wide gene expression profiling by RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) of S. intermedius under short-term high temperature, hypoxia, and combined stresses. We found that exposure to the combined stresses resulted in a two-factor additive effect at the transcriptome level and had a broader effect on immune-related pathways in the S. intermedius than a single stress had (Hao et al, 2022).…”

“…In a previous study (Hao et al, 2022), we performed transcriptome-wide gene expression profiling by RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) of S. intermedius under short-term high temperature, hypoxia, and combined stresses. We found that exposure to the combined stresses resulted in a two-factor additive effect at the transcriptome level and had a broader effect on immune-related pathways in the S. intermedius than a single stress had (Hao et al, 2022). However, no reports on the involvement of miRNAs in the regulatory mechanism of sea urchins under acute environmental stresses have been published so far.…”