Identifying candidate genes involved in the regulation of growth using comparative transcriptome analysis (Androctonus crassicauda)

BackgroundScorpions are venomous arthropod belonging to the arachnida, which considered as living fossils. Recently, transcriptomic analyses of scorpion venom gland were carried out by high-throughput sequencing and further analysis, but so far, the transcriptional analysis of venom gland of scorpion in different growth stages (adult and juvenile) have not been examined. Here, an Illumina-based sequencing study was designed to detect the candidate genes associated with growth development of scorpions of A. crassicauda. ResultsA total of 209951 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 397 out of 558 up-regulated transcripts and 269 out of 405 down-regulated transcripts with sequence similarity to annotated genes from various animals. 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 biomarker genes associated with scorpions development and maturation, 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. ConclusionsThese findings broadened our knowledge about the differences between adult and juvenile scorpion’s venom and opens new perspectives about the application of comparative transcriptome analysis to identify the special biomarkers.