A transcriptome study on Macrobrachium rosenbergii hepatopancreas experimentally challenged with white spot syndrome virus (WSSV)

[Display omitted] •The white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) is one of the major pathogens that affect shrimp production around the world.•15 animal immune function genes were diffrentially expressed to capture response using real time PCR and next generation sequencing and its response captured by hepatopancrease.•The role and importance of these immune related genes can further investigated for selection and forming disease resistance lines in this species. The world production of shrimp such as the Malaysian giant freshwater prawn, Macrobrachium rosenbergii is seriously affected by the white spot syndrome virus (WSSV). There is an urgent need to understand the host pathogen interaction between M. rosenbergii and WSSV which will be able to provide a solution in controlling the spread of this infectious disease and lastly save the aquaculture industry. Now, using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), we will be able to capture the response of the M. rosenbergii to the pathogen and have a better understanding of the host defence mechanism. Two cDNA libraries, one of WSSV-challenged M. rosenbergii and a normal control one, were sequenced using the Illumina HiSeq™ 2000 platform. After de novo assembly and clustering of the unigenes from both libraries, 63,584 standard unigenes were generated with a mean size of 698bp and an N50 of 1137bp. We successfully annotated 35.31% of all unigenes by using BLASTX program (E-value