Department of Venomous Animals and Anti-Venom Production, Agricultural Research, Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute, Ahvaz, Iran.
BMC Genomics. 2022 Sep 8;23(1):636. doi: 10.1186/s12864-022-08866-1.
The Androctonus crassicauda, belonging to the genus Androctonus of the family Buthidae, is the most venomous scorpion in Middle East countries. However, the venom gland transcriptome profile of A. crassicauda scorpion has not yet been studied. In this study, we elucidated and compared the venom gland gene expression profiles of adult and juvenile male scorpion A. crassicauda using high-throughput transcriptome sequencing. This is the first report of transcriptional analysis of the venom glands of scorpions in different growth stages, with insights into the identification of the key genes during venom gland development.
A total of 209,951 mRNA transcripts were identified from total RNA-seq data, of which 963 transcripts were differentially expressed (DE) in adult and juvenile scorpions (p < 0.01). Overall, we identified 558 up-regulated and 405 down-regulated transcripts in the adult compared to the juvenile scorpions, of which 397 and 269 unique unigenes were annotated, respectively. GO and KEGG enrichment analyses indicated that the metabolic, thermogenesis, cytoskeleton, estrogen signaling, GnRH signaling, growth hormone signaling, and melanogenesis pathways were affected by two different growth conditions and the results suggested that the DE genes related to those pathways are important genes associated with scorpion venom gland development, in which they may be important in future studies, including Chs, Elovl, MYH, RDX, ACTN, VCL, PIP5K, PP1C, FGFR, GNAS, EGFR, CREB, CoA, PLCB, CALM, CACNA, PKA and CAMK genes.
These findings broadened our knowledge of the differences between adult and juvenile scorpion venom and opened new perspectives on the application of comparative transcriptome analysis to identify the special key genes.
产自中东国家的安德罗克毒蛛属的安德罗克毒蛛，是最毒的蝎子。然而，安德罗克毒蛛的毒腺转录组图谱尚未被研究。在这项研究中，我们使用高通量转录组测序方法阐明和比较了成年和幼年雄性安德罗克毒蛛毒腺的基因表达谱。这是首次对不同生长阶段蝎子毒腺的转录组分析进行报道，深入了解了毒液腺发育过程中的关键基因识别。
从总 RNA-seq 数据中鉴定出 209951 个 mRNA 转录本，其中 963 个转录本在成年和幼年蝎子中差异表达（p < 0.01）。总体而言，与幼年蝎子相比，成年蝎子中有 558 个上调和 405 个下调的转录本，分别注释了 397 个和 269 个独特的 unigenes。GO 和 KEGG 富集分析表明，代谢、生热、细胞骨架、雌激素信号、GnRH 信号、生长激素信号和黑色素生成途径受到两种不同生长条件的影响，结果表明与这些途径相关的差异表达基因是与蝎子毒液腺发育相关的重要基因，其中它们可能在未来的研究中很重要，包括 Chs、Elovl、MYH、RDX、ACTN、VCL、PIP5K、PP1C、FGFR、GNAS、EGFR、CREB、CoA、PLCB、CALM、CACNA、PKA 和 CAMK 基因。
这些发现拓宽了我们对成年和幼年蝎子毒液之间差异的认识，并为应用比较转录组分析来识别特殊关键基因开辟了新的视角。
