Standard Presentation (15 mins) Australian Marine Sciences Association 2022

Transcriptomic response to heat-stress in abalone - a meta-analysis (#243)

Roy Barkan 1 , Ira Cooke 2 3 , Sue-Ann Watson 4 5 , Jan Strugnell 1
  1. Centre for Sustainable Tropical Fisheries and Aquaculture, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
  2. Centre for Tropical Bioinformatics and Molecular Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
  3. Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
  4. College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, Australia
  5. Biodiversity and Geosciences Program, Queensland Museum Tropics, Queensland Museum , Townsville, Queensland, Australia

Abalone are economically and ecologically important mollusc species. Australia is currently the leading producer of wild-caught abalone in the world and is known for its high-quality farmed abalone. Both wild caught and farmed abalone species are susceptible to mass mortality events that occur during summer months and are referred to as ‘summer mortality’. Genetic responses to stress have been investigated in a number of individual abalone species but it is unknown whether these genetic responses are shared across species of abalone more broadly. Here, we analysed seven transcriptomic datasets (RNA-seq) from previously published studies to determine the presence of generalised versus species-specific stress responses. These datasets included sequences from five abalone species: H. laevigata, H. tuberculata, H. fulgens, H. diversicolor and H. discus hannai.   Here we present genes that were consistently upregulated or downregulated across species.  Our findings provide insights into the genetic mechanisms that abalone employ during thermal stress.  This meta-analysis of publicly available RNA-Seq data, will ultimately, benefit the aquaculture industry and offer useful knowledge for combating summer mortality events.