Fishery College, Guangdong Ocean University, 40 East Jiefang Road, Xiashan District, Zhanjiang City, Guangdong, 524025, China.
Mar Biotechnol (NY). 2012 Dec;14(6):730-9. doi: 10.1007/s10126-012-9438-3. Epub 2012 Feb 16.
Pearl oyster Pinctada martensii is cultured for production of pearl in China. It needs to implant a mantle graft cut from a donor oyster and a seed nucleus into the gonad of the host oyster to produce a pearl. Pearl sac surrounding the nucleus is formed by the proliferation of the implanted mantle graft from the outer mantle epithelial cells in the host oyster. The pearl sac is responsible for production of a cultured pearl. A comprehensive transcriptome analysis on pearl sac will help to understand the mechanism on pearl formation and immune response of host oyster after nucleus implantation. In the present study, 39,400,004 reads were produced from the pearl sac using RNA-sequence technology and then assembled into 102,762 unigenes. More than 22.4% of these unigenes were possibly involved in approximately 219 known signaling pathways. A total of 37,188 unigenes were annotated based on sequences similarities with known proteins. Fifty-one biomineralization-related unigenes and 268 immune-related unigenes were not previously detected in P. martensii. The un-annotated unigenes may be some genes specifically existed in P. martensii. These annotated or un-annotated unigenes in the present studies were valuable for the future investigation on molecular mechanism of pearl formation and immune response of the species.
马氏珠母贝（Pinctada martensii）在中国被广泛养殖用于生产珍珠。养殖珍珠的过程中，需要将取自供体珍珠贝的外套膜组织移植片和珠核植入宿主珍珠贝的生殖腺内，以形成珍珠囊。珍珠囊由宿主珍珠贝外套膜的外胚层细胞在外来移植片的刺激下增殖形成，负责生产养殖珍珠。对珍珠囊进行全面的转录组分析有助于了解珍珠形成的机制以及宿主珍珠贝在植入珠核后的免疫反应。本研究采用 RNA 测序技术对珍珠囊进行测序，共获得 39,400,004 条reads，并组装成 102,762 条 unigenes。这些 unigenes中超过 22.4%可能参与了大约 219 个已知的信号通路。根据与已知蛋白序列的相似性，对 37,188 条 unigenes进行了注释。共鉴定到 51 条与生物矿化相关的 unigenes 和 268 条与免疫相关的 unigenes，这些 unigenes在马氏珠母贝中之前没有被检测到。本研究中的未注释 unigenes可能是一些特定存在于马氏珠母贝中的基因。这些注释或未注释的 unigenes对于未来研究马氏珠母贝珍珠形成和免疫反应的分子机制具有重要价值。
