Mandarin fish (Sinipercidae) genomes provide insights into innate predatory feeding

Abstract

Mandarin fishes (Sinipercidae) are piscivores that feed solely on live fry. Unlike higher vertebrates, teleosts exhibit feeding behavior driven mainly by genetic responses, with no modification by learning from parents. Mandarin fishes could serve as excellent model organisms for studying feeding behavior. We report a long-read, chromosomal-scale genome assembly for Siniperca chuatsi and genome assemblies for Siniperca kneri, Siniperca scherzeri and Coreoperca whiteheadi. Positive selection analysis revealed rapid adaptive evolution of genes related to predatory feeding/aggression, growth, pyloric caeca and euryhalinity. Very few gill rakers are observed in mandarin fishes; analogously, we found that zebrafish deficient in edar had a gill raker loss phenotype and a more predatory habit, with reduced intake of zooplankton but increased intake of prey fish. Higher expression of bmp4, which could inhibit edar expression and gill raker development through binding of a Xvent-1 site upstream of edar, may cause predatory feeding in Siniperca.

Construction of a Genetic Linkage Map Based on SNP Markers, QTL Mapping and Detection of Candidate Genes of Growth-Related Traits in Pacific Abalone Using Genotyping-by-Sequencing

“…It has also been reported that galectins contribute to larval development of Pacific abalone (Sandamalika and Lee, 2020), muscle development in Drosophila (Pace et al, 2002) and chick muscle (Cooper and Barondes, 1990). The Gal-3 gene in Siniperca chuatsi was significantly upregulated in groups of fish with higher growth performance, suggesting that protein glycosylation might contribute to the growth performance of S. chuatsi (He et al, 2020). In general, CaM genes and their associated kinases are involved in increased growth and anabolic functions.…”

Development of digestive enzymatic activity and gene expression during the early ontogeny of Chinese perch (Siniperca chuatsi)

“…The present study is the first report of the gene expression of digestive enzyme in S. chuatsi larvae, the latest S. chuatsi genomics data published by our research team were used to ensure the reliability of genes [13] . Almost digestive enzyme genes expression (excepted amy and pep) were detected at hatching, it's concurrent with the digestive enzyme activities.…”

“…Quantitative real time PCR analysis followed a modified method of Khoa et al [1] and He et al [13] For total RNA isolation, the larvae for each sampling day was homogenized in 1 ml of TRIzol™ reagent (TaKaRa, Dalian, China) in triplicate. The RNA concentration and purity were detected by nucleic acid quantifier (Thermo Scientific, Waltham city, Massachusetts, USA) ensured the OD 260 / 280 of all samples ranged between 1.8 and 2.0. cDNA synthesis was reverse-transcribed using M-MLV reverse transcriptase (TaKaRa, Dalian, China) according to the manufacturer's instructions in a final volume of 20 μl.…”

Development of gill rakers may influence the prey choice in Chinese perch (Siniperca chuatsi) larvae

“…Quantitative real‐time PCR analysis followed a modified method of He et al, (2020) and Tang et al, (2020). For total RNA isolation, the larvae for each sampling day were homogenized in 1–1.2 ml of TRIzol ™ reagent (TaKaRa) in triplicate.…”