Microarray analysis of gene expression in disk abalone Haliotis discus discus after bacterial challenge

In this study, we investigated the gene expression profiling of disk abalone, Haliotis discus discus challenged by a mixture of three pathogenic bacteria Vibrio alginolyticus, Vibrio parahemolyticus, and Listeria monocytogenes using a cDNA microarray. Upon bacteria challenge, 68 (1.6%) and 112 (2.7%) gene transcripts changed their expression levels >= 2 or <= 2 -fold in gills and digestive tract, respectively. There were 46 tissue-specific transcripts that up-regulated specifically in the digestive tract. In contrast, only 13 transcripts showed gill-specific up-regulation. Quantitative real-time PCR was performed to verify microarray data and results revealed that candidate genes namely Kruppell-like factor (KLF), lachesin, muscle lim protein, thioredoxin-2 (TRx-2), nuclear factor interleukin 3 (NFIL-3) and abalone protein 38 were up-regulated. Also, our results further indicated that bacteria challenge may activate the transcription factors or their activators (Kruppell-like factor, inhibitor of NF-kappa B or Ik-B), inflammatory cytokines (IL-3 regulated protein, allograft inflammatory factor), other cytokines (IFN-44-like protein, SOCS-2), antioxidant enzymes (glutathione-S-transferase, thioredoxin-2 and thioredoxin peroxidase), and apoptosis-related proteins (TNF-alpha, archeron) in abalone. The identification of immune and stress response genes and their expression profiles in this microarray will permit detailed investigation of the stress and immune responses of abalone genes. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.This research was supported by the Marine and Extreme Genome Research Center Program of the Ministry of Land, Transportation and Maritime Affairs, Republic of Korea; the MKE (The Ministry of Knowledge Economy), Korea, under the ITRC (Information Technology Research Center) support program supervised by the NIPA (National IT Industry Promotion Agency) (NIPA-2009-C1090-0903-0007). We would like to thank Sunwoo Lee (Genomictree Inc. Daejeon, Republic of Korea) for valuable comments