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Comp Biochem Physiol Part D Genomics Proteomics. 2021 Jan 12;38 100792.
doi: 10.1016/j.cbd.2021.100792. Online ahead of print.
Single-molecule long-read (SMRT) transcriptome
sequencing of Mercenaria mercenaria reveals a
powerful anti-apoptotic system critical for air
exposure endurance
Cong Zhou  1 , Hao Song  2 , Mei-Jie Yang  1 , Xiao-Cheng Wang  3 , Zheng-Lin Yu  2 , Zhi Hu  1 , 
Pu Shi  1 , Tao Zhang  4
Affiliations
PMID: 33465732 DOI: 10.1016/j.cbd.2021.100792
Abstract
Mercenaria mercenaria is an economically important clam species and exhibits an outstanding
resistance to multiple environmental stressors. However, our understanding of their stress
adaptability is limited due to a lack of genomic information, such as transcriptome resources. In this
study, single-molecule long-read (SMRT) mRNA sequencing was performed to obtain the full-
length gill transcriptome reference sequences of M. mercenaria under air exposure stress. In all,
14.5 G subreads were obtained and assembled into 64,603 unigenes, among which 50,613 were
successfully annotated. Additionally, 56,295 SSRs, 1457 transcription factors, and 5924 lncRNAs
were identified in M. mercenaria transcriptome. Furthermore, numerous apoptosis-related
transcripts were identified according to Swiss-Prot annotation and their numbers were counted. We
also found that most apoptosis-related transcripts exhibited typical domains of a certain protein
family through conserved domain prediction. Additionally, eight typical sequences related to
apoptosis pathway were detected by RT-PCR, with the aim to show the sequential variation of gene
expression levels under air exposure. These results implied that the complicated apoptosis system,
especially the powerful anti-apoptotic system was critical for M. mercenaria to endure air exposure.
Keywords: Air exposure; Apoptosis; Environmental adaptability; Mercenaria mercenaria; SMRT
sequencing; Transcriptome.
Copyright © 2021. Published by Elsevier Inc.