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Characterization of the Gene Repertoire and Environmentally Driven Expression Patterns in Tanner Crab (Chionoecetes bairdi)

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Abstract

Tanner crab (Chionoecetes bairdi) is an economically important species that is threatened by ocean warming and bitter crab disease, which is caused by an endoparasitic dinoflagellate, Hematodinium. Little is known about disease transmission or its link to host mortality, or how ocean warming will affect pathogenicity or host susceptibility. To provide a transcriptomic resource for the Tanner crab, we generated a suite of RNA-seq libraries encompassing pooled hemolymph samples from crab displaying differing infection statuses and maintained at different temperatures (ambient (7.5˚C), elevated (10˚C), or decreased (4˚C)). After assembling a transcriptome and performing a multifactor differential gene expression analysis, we found genes influenced by temperature in relation to infection and detected some of those genes over time at the individual level using RNA-seq data from one crab. Biological processes associated with those genes include lipid storage, transcription, response to oxidative stress, cell adhesion, and morphogenesis. Alteration in lipid storage and transcription provide insight into how temperature impacts energy allocation in Hematodinium infected crabs. Alteration in expression patterns in genes associated with morphogenesis could suggest that hemocytes were changing morphology and/or type in response to temperature. This project provides insight into how Hematodinium infection could influence crab physiology as oceans warm.

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Availability of Data and Material

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available in the RobertsLab/paper-tanner-crab repository, available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4563060. All raw sequencing data is available in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRR11548643—SRR11548677).

Code Availability

Code is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4563060.

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Funding

This project was funded by the North Pacific Research Board (NPRB), project 1705. This work was facilitated through the use of advanced computational, storage, and networking infrastructure provided by the Hyak supercomputer system at the University of Washington. This work was also supported by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game through the collection of crab, providing personnel to assist in hemolymph withdrawals, and the monitoring of the crab in the Ted Stevens Marine Research Institute (TSMRI, NOAA facility, Juneau, AK) during the experiment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98105, USA

    Grace Crandall, Samuel J. White & Steven Roberts

  2. Resource Assessment and Conservation Engineering Division, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, 7600 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA, 98115, USA

    Pamela C. Jensen

Authors
  1. Grace Crandall
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  2. Pamela C. Jensen
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  3. Samuel J. White
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  4. Steven Roberts
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Contributions

G.C. performed RNA extractions for sequencing, data analysis and interpretation, and manuscript writing and preparation for publication. P.J. contributed to project and experimental design and performed sample collection from live crab, qPCR, and manuscript writing and editing. S.W. assembled and annotated the transcriptome and provided manuscript writing and editing. S.R. contributed to the experimental and project design, guidance throughout data analysis and interpretation, and manuscript writing and editing.

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Correspondence to Steven Roberts.

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The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4563060

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Crandall, G., Jensen, P.C., White, S.J. et al. Characterization of the Gene Repertoire and Environmentally Driven Expression Patterns in Tanner Crab (Chionoecetes bairdi). Mar Biotechnol 24, 216–225 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-022-10100-8

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