The toxico-transcriptomic analysis of nano-copper oxide on gazami crab: especially focus on hepatopancreas and gill

Abstract To explore the gene expression profiling in gazami crab’s hepatopancreas and gill tissues which were challenged with CuO-NPs. Specimens of gazami crab P. trituberculatus were collected and challenged with CuO-NPs, then their hepatopancreas and gill tissues were dissected for RNA extraction. The cDNA libraries were synthesized and sequenced. De novo assembly of crab transcriptome was conducted for gene expression quantification and differential expression analysis. Finally the results were validated by RT-PCR. 56 unigenes displayed differential expression pattern in CuO-NPs treated hepatopancreas tissue. and 273 unigenes displayed differential expression pattern in CuO-NPs treated gill tissue. The gene expression pattern between control and CuO-NPs treated hepatopancreas was very closed to each other, while the gene expression pattern between control and CuO-NPs treated gill was more distinct. 13 genes were mutually exclusive to participate, and he data generated from RNAseq was well consistent with those obtained from RT-PCR. CuO-NPs could induce toxic effects in crab gills as well as in genetic level and the 13 genes might be the potential marker genes for CuO-NPs toxicology.