Age-dependent expression of stress and antimicrobial genes in the hemocytes and siphon tissue of the Antarctic bivalve, Laternula elliptica, exposed to injury and starvation.

ABSTRACT: Increasing temperatures and glacier melting at the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) are causing rapid changes in shallow coastal and shelf systems. Climate change-related rising water temperatures, enhanced ice scouring, as well as coastal sediment runoff, in combination with changing feeding conditions and microbial community composition, will affect all elements of the nearshore benthic ecosystem, a major component of which is the Antarctic soft-shelled clam Laternula elliptica. A 454-based RNA sequencing was carried out on tissues and hemocytes of L. elliptica, resulting in 42,525 contigs, of which 48 % was assigned putative functions. Changes in the expression of putative stress response genes were then investigated in hemocytes and siphon tissue of young and old animals subjected to

SUBMITTER: Husmann G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3857432 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature