Transcriptome analysis reveals the mechanism of alkalinity exposure on spleen oxidative stress, inflammation and immune function of Luciobarbus capito

Abstract

Saline-alkali land is distributed all over the world, and it affects the economic development of fisheries. The alkalinity in water is related to the accumulation of carbonate, so the is generally higher. To understand how alkalinity impacts the immune response in Luciobarbus capito, we performed transcriptomic profiles for spleen, the immune organ of Luciobarbus capito which were underwent alkalinity exposure. Totally there are 47,727,954, 53,987,820 and 51,398,546 high quality clean reads obtained from the control groups, and 46,996,982, 49,650,460 and 45,964,986 clean reads from the alkalinity exposure groups. Among them, 611 genes were differently expressed, including 534 upregulated and 77 down-regulated genes. The identified genes were enriched using databases of Gene Ontology (GO) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG). It was found that differentially expressed genes in Luciobarbus capito spleen tissue were enriched into 14 GO pathways, and differentially expressed genes in Luciobarbus capito spleen were enriched into 25 corresponding KEGG pathways under alkalinity stress. Inflammation and immune function genes and pathways were identified and validated by quantitative real-time RT-PCR. Our results showed that alkalinity exposure leads to inflammation and immunoregulation in spleen of Luciobarbus capito. These results provide new insights for unveiling the biological effects of alkalinity in Luciobarbus capito.