Study on the stress responsive genes in Saxidomus purpuratus

Abstract

The purplish Washington clam, Saxidomus purpuratus (Veneridae, Saxidomus) is widely distributed in the coast of Korea, Japan, China and Russia. The clam inhabits in the sandy mud between intertidal zone and 40 m depth under water. This species is one of the important commercial bivalves in Korea. Fisheries of this species have been concentrated in the southern sea in Korea. However, the total amount of catching has been decreasing robustly and approximately 80% of catching amount decreased in 2014 comparing with 1990s. To conserve this marine resources and investigate the response to the environmental stresses in Saxidomus purpuratus, the molecular approaches using stress responsive genes and the gene expression changes would be attempted in this study. RNA is extracted from the clam and RNAseq proceeds using NGS method then oligo-microarray is constructed based on the gene sequences from the assembled results in Saxidomus purpuratus after NGS analyses. The oligo-microarray of Saxidomus purpuratus would be used to explore the differentially expressed genes after exposure to several stress factors and then these isolated gene candidates could be used as molecular markers for the identification of environmental stressors.ies is one of the important commercial bivalves in Korea. Fisheries of this species have been concentrated in the southern sea in Korea. However, the total amount of catching has been decreasing robustly and approximately 80% of catching amount decreased in 2014 comparing with 1990s. To conserve this marine resources and investigate the response to the environmental stresses in Saxidomus purpuratus, the molecular approaches using stress responsive genes and the gene expression changes would be attempted in this study. RNA is extracted from the clam and RNAseq proceeds using NGS method then oligo-microarray is constructed based on the gene sequences from the assembled results in Saxidomus purpuratus after NGS analyses. The oligo-microarray of Saxidomus purpuratus would be used to explore the differentially expressed genes after exposure to several stress factors and then these isolated gene candidates could be used as molecular markers for the identification of environmental stressors.