A dual omics approach to evaluate transcriptional and metabolic responses during lipid deprivation in an oyster parasite Perkinsus marinus

In this study, we explored the metabolic processes of P. marinus under lipid deprived conditions to elucidate the interchanging flux of lipid and carbohydrate metabolism. Though P. marinus can synthesize their own lipids from available nutrients, they display a slower growth in media not supplemented with lipids as opposed to media with lipids. Under these conditions, using transcriptomics, we surprisingly observed evidence of stimulated lipid degradation through increased transcription of two core β-oxidation pathway enzymes. We sought to examine the transciptional effects of lipid withdrawal from growth media using RNA seq methodologies.