Transcriptome analysis of Macrobrachium rosenbergii: Identification of precocious puberty and slow-growing information.

Macrobrachium rosenbergii is an important economic aquatic animal and has been cultivated worldwide. However, it has suffered a disease of precocious puberty and growth retardation. This disease was also called iron prawn syndrome (IPS) in recent years. However, the cause of this disease has thus far remained a mystery . The present work utilized transcriptome sequencing technology to acquire gene expression information of gonads and to find the differentially expressed genes(DEGs) between diseased and normal male prawn. Finally, 426 significantly expressed genes were identified(p less than 0.01, |log2FC|≥1), of which 171 genes were up-regulated and 255 were down-regulated. Furthermore, DEGs were annotated to 36 GO terms and 202 KEGG pathways. Enrichment analysis of DEGs resulted in 10 significantly enriched GO terms and a total of 12 significantly enriched KEGG pathways. Analysis of the transcriptome sequences and DEGs identified several unigenes and pathways involved in precocious puberty and growth retardation. Quantitative PCR was performed to validate accuracy of the RNA-seq and the expression level of 10 genes, calculated by two analysis method, was mostly consistent. This is the first time to report precocious puberty and growth retardation male M. rosenbergii by transcriptome sequencing. The data presented here reveals key insights into the genetic markers of precocious puberty and growth retardation of male M. rosenbergii.