Shan Huiquan, Ren Ke, Liu Jiasheng, Rehman Saif Ur, Yan Xiuying, Ma Xiaocong, Zheng Yalin, Feng Tong, Wang Xiaobo, Li Zhipeng, Zhou Weiguan, Chuang Chen, Liang Mingkun, Zheng Jinghui, Liu Qingyou
Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Molecular Design and Precise Breeding, School of Life Science and Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan, China.
State Key Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Subtropical Agro- Bioresources, Guangxi University, Nanning, China.
Front Physiol. 2022 May 25;13:897458. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2022.897458. eCollection 2022.
Medical leeches are widely been used in biochemical and clinical medical studies, helping to restore blood circulation to grafted or severely injured tissue. Mostly, adult leeches are being used in the traditional pharmacopeia, but the gene expression profiling of leeches in different growth periods is not well-reported. So, in this study, we used transcriptome analysis to analyze the comparative gene expression patterns of () in different growth periods, including larval, young, and adult stages. We constructed 24 cDNA libraries from larval, young, and adult stages, and about 54,639,118 sequences were generated, 18,106 mRNA transcripts of which 958 novel mRNAs and 491 lncRNAs were also assembled as well. Furthermore, the results of Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analyses revealed that the differentially upregulated genes from the larval to adult stages were enriched in pathways such as cilium, myofibril, contractile fiber, cytoskeleton proteins, dilated cardiomyopathy, adrenergic signaling in cardiomyocytes, etc. Moreover, in the adult stages, a significant increase in the expression of the Hirudin-HM () genes was detected. In addition, our comparative transcriptome profiling data from different growth stages of also identified a large number of DEGs and DElncRNAs which were tentatively found to be associated with the growth of ; as it grew, the muscle-related gene expression increased, while the lipid metabolism and need for stimulation and nutrition-related genes decreased. Similarly, the higher expression of might attribute to the high expression of protein disulfide isomerase gene family (PDI) family genes in adulthood, which provides an important clue that why adult leeches rather than young leeches are widely used in clinical therapeutics and traditional Chinese medicine.
医用蚂蟥在生化和临床医学研究中被广泛应用，有助于恢复移植组织或严重损伤组织的血液循环。在传统药典中，大多使用成年蚂蟥，但不同生长阶段蚂蟥的基因表达谱报道较少。因此，在本研究中，我们利用转录组分析来分析（）在不同生长阶段（包括幼虫、幼年和成年阶段）的比较基因表达模式。我们从幼虫、幼年和成年阶段构建了24个cDNA文库，共产生了约54,639,118个序列，其中还组装了18,106个mRNA转录本，包括958个新的mRNA和491个lncRNA。此外，基因本体论（GO）和京都基因与基因组百科全书（KEGG）富集分析结果显示，从幼虫到成年阶段差异上调的基因富集在纤毛、肌原纤维、收缩纤维、细胞骨架蛋白、扩张型心肌病、心肌细胞肾上腺素能信号传导等途径中。此外，在成年阶段，检测到水蛭素-HM（）基因的表达显著增加。此外，我们来自不同生长阶段的比较转录组谱数据还鉴定出大量差异表达基因（DEGs）和差异表达长链非编码RNA（DElncRNAs），初步发现它们与（）的生长有关；随着其生长，与肌肉相关的基因表达增加，而与脂质代谢以及刺激和营养需求相关的基因减少。同样，（）的高表达可能归因于成年期蛋白质二硫键异构酶基因家族（PDI）家族基因的高表达，这为成年蚂蟥而非幼年蚂蟥在临床治疗和传统中药中被广泛应用提供了重要线索。
