Project description:Background: The Scylla paramamosain is a very important aquaculture crustacean species in the southeast coastal areas of China including Shantou. For the past few years, mud crab cultured in Niutianyang of Shantou suffered from serious diseases, especially the bacterial diseases (such as Vibrio parahaemolyticus). In eukaryotes, small RNAs can regulate gene expression in post-transcription to act on host-pathogen interaction system. Aims: V.parahaemolyticus isolated from Shantou Niutianyang crab culture area was injected to S.paramamosains to carry out an essential analysis on global miRNA expression in diverse tissues between two groups by the Illumina Solex deep sequencing technology. Methodology:To examine the relationship between mud crab miRNA expression and the bacterial pathogen, we collected mixed two pools of equal amounts of RNA from 7 different mud crab tissues (mesenteron, heart, liver, gill, brain, muscle and blood) and sequencing by Illumine/Solexa deep sequencing technology under normal conditions and during infection with V.parahaemolyticus. The high throughput sequencing resulted in 19,144,358 and 18,559,070 raw reads corresponding to 17,496,577 and 16,888,096 high-quality mappable reads for the normal and infected mixed pools, respectively. Stem-loop RT-qPCRs were used to confirm the microRNAs expression in different tissues of two pools. The results show that miRNAs might play a key role in regulating gene expression during mud crab S.paramamosain infection with V.parahaemolyticus. Conclusions: We identified a large number of miRNAs during the mud crab Scylla paramamosain infection with V.parahaemolyticus, some of which are differentially expressed between the treatments and the controls. The study provides an opportunity for further understanding of small RNA function in the regulation of molecular response and gives us clues for further studies of the mechanisms of V.parahaemolyticus infection in mud crab. Examination of miRNA expression in normal Scylla paramamosain group and the Scylla paramamosain infected with Vibrio parahaemolyticus
