Integrated Analysis of the Intestinal Microbiota and Transcriptome of Response to Low-Salinity Stress.

Salinity is an important environmental stress factor in mariculture. Shrimp intestines harbor dense and diverse microbial communities that maintain host health and anti-pathogen capabilities under salinity stress. In this study, 16s amplicon and transcriptome sequencing were used to analyze the intestine of under low-salinity stress (15 ppt). This study aimed to investigate the response mechanisms of the intestinal microbiota and gene expression to acute low-salinity stress. The intestinal tissues of were analyzed using 16S microbiota and transcriptome sequencing. The microbiota analysis demonstrated that the relative abundances of and decreased significantly, whereas , , , , , , , and became the predominant communities. Transcriptome sequencing identified numerous differentially expressed genes (DEGs). The DEGs were clustered into many Gene Ontology terms and further enriched in some immunity- or metabolism-related Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways, including various types of N-glycan biosynthesis, amino acid sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism, and lysosome and fatty acid metabolism. Correlation analysis between microbiota and DEGs showed that changes in , , , and were positively correlated with immune-related genes such as peritrophin-1-like and mucin-2-like, and negatively correlated with caspase-1-like genes. Low-salinity stress caused changes in intestinal microorganisms and their gene expression, with a close correlation between them.