Transcriptomic analyses on muscle tissues of Litopenaeus vannamei provide the first profile insight into the response to low temperature stress.

The Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) is an important cultured crustacean species worldwide. However, little is known about the molecular mechanism of this species involved in the response to cold stress. In this study, four separate RNA-Seq libraries of L. vannamei were generated from 13°C stress and control temperature. Total 29,662 of Unigenes and overall of 19,619 annotated genes were obtained. Three comparisons were carried out among the four libraries, in which 72 of the top 20% of differentially-expressed genes were obtained, 15 GO and 5 KEGG temperature-sensitive pathways were fished out. Catalytic activity (GO: 0003824) and Metabolic pathways (ko01100) were the most annotated GO and KEGG pathways in response to cold stress, respectively. In addition, Calcium, MAPK cascade, Transcription factor and Serine/threonine-protein kinase signal pathway were picked out and clustered. Serine/threonine-protein kinase signal pathway might play more important roles in cold adaptation, while other three signal pathway were not widely transcribed. Our results had summarized the differentially-expressed genes and suggested the major important signaling pathways and related genes. These findings provide the first profile insight into the molecular basis of L. vannamei response to cold stress.