Transcriptome Sequencing, De Novo Assembly and Differential Gene Expression Analysis of the Early Development of Acipenser baeri

The molecular mechanisms that drive the development of the endangered fossil fish species Acipenser baeri are difficult to study due to the lack of genomic data. Recent advances in sequencing technologies and the reducing cost of sequencing offer exclusive opportunities for exploring important molecular mechanisms underlying specific biological processes. This manuscript describes the large scale sequencing and analyses of mRNA from Acipenser baeri collected at five development time points using the Illumina Hiseq2000 platform. The sequencing reads were de novo assembled and clustered into 278167 unigenes, of which 57346 (20.62%) had 45837 known homologues proteins in Uniprot protein databases while 11509 proteins matched with at least one sequence of assembled unigenes. The remaining 79.38% of unigenes could stand for non-coding unigenes or unigenes specific to A. baeri. A number of 43062 unigenes were annotated into functional categories via Gene Ontology (GO) annotation whereas 29526 unigenes were associated with 329 pathways by mapping to KEGG database. Subsequently, 3479 differentially expressed genes were scanned within developmental stages and clustered into 50 gene expression profiles. Genes preferentially expressed at each stage were also identified. Through GO and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis, relevant physiological variations during the early development of A. baeri could be better cognized. Accordingly, the present study gives insights into the transcriptome profile of the early development of A. baeri, and the information contained in this large scale transcriptome will provide substantial references for A. baeri developmental biology and promote its aquaculture research.