Lei Ying, Wang Yang, Ahola Virpi, Luo Shiqi, Xu Chongren, Wang Rongjiang
College of Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, People's Republic of China.
Department of Biosciences, University of Helsinki, 00014, Helsinki, Finland.
Mol Biol Rep. 2016 Dec;43(12):1423-1433. doi: 10.1007/s11033-016-4076-x. Epub 2016 Sep 20.
The Glanville fritillary butterfly (Melitaea cinxia; Nymphalidae) has been extensively studied as a model species in metapopulation ecology. We investigated in the earlier studies that female butterflies exhibit higher thermal tolerance than males in the Tianshan Mountains of China. We aim to understand the molecular mechanism of differences of thermal responses between sexes. We used RNA-seq approach and performed de novo assembly of transcriptome to compare the gene expression patterns between two sexes after heat stress. All the reads were assembled into 84,376 transcripts and 72,701 unigenes. The number of differential expressed genes (DEGs) between control and heat shock samples was 175 and 268 for males and females, respectively. Heat shock proteins genes (hsps) were up-regulated in response to heat stress in both males and females. Most of the up-regulated hsps showed higher fold changes in males than in females. Females expressed more ribosomal subunit protein genes, transcriptional elongation factor genes, and methionine-rich storage protein genes, participating in protein synthesis. It indicated that protein synthesis is needed for females to replace the damaged proteins due to heat shock. In addition, aspartate decarboxylase might contribute to thermal tolerance in females. These differences in gene expression may at least partly explain the response to high temperature stress, and the fact that females exhibit higher thermal tolerance.
格兰维尔豹纹蝶（Melitaea cinxia；蛱蝶科）作为集合种群生态学中的一个模式物种，已被广泛研究。我们在早期研究中调查发现，在中国天山地区，雌性蝴蝶比雄性蝴蝶表现出更高的耐热性。我们旨在了解两性之间热反应差异的分子机制。我们采用RNA测序方法并对转录组进行从头组装，以比较热应激后两性之间的基因表达模式。所有 reads 被组装成84,376个转录本和72,701个单基因。对照样本和热休克样本之间，雄性和雌性的差异表达基因（DEG）数量分别为175个和268个。热休克蛋白基因（hsps）在雄性和雌性中均响应热应激而上调。大多数上调的hsps在雄性中的倍数变化高于雌性。雌性表达了更多参与蛋白质合成的核糖体亚基蛋白基因、转录延伸因子基因和富含蛋氨酸的储存蛋白基因。这表明雌性需要蛋白质合成来替换因热休克而受损的蛋白质。此外，天冬氨酸脱羧酶可能有助于雌性的耐热性。这些基因表达差异可能至少部分解释了对高温胁迫的反应以及雌性表现出更高耐热性的事实。
