Transcriptomes from shrimp fisheries from Mexican Pacific

Shrimp culture and fisheries are important food sources worldwide. Mexican Pacific fisheries are supported by four species: <em>Penaeus brevirostris</em>, <em>P. californiensis</em>,<em> P. stylirostris</em>, and<em> P. vannamei</em>. However, the same shrimp fishery practices, management strategies, and closures are applied to these four species despite the known differences in their life history and reproductive periods. Most molecular studies have focused on the cultured species<em> P. vannamei</em>, and therefore most of its genes involved in reproduction control have been characterized, which is not the case for the other three species. Therefore, this study sought to examine the transcriptomes of these four shrimp species from the Mexican Pacific at different maturity stages. A total of 165 unigenes were found to be reproduction-related in the four shrimp species, most of which were linked to cellular regulation (replication, mitosis, meiosis, etc). The genes with the highest overall expression levels were associated with ribosomes, transcription, and methyltransferase pathways. Moreover, the reproduction-related genes with the highest expression values were <em>polehole</em> <em>protein</em> and <em>ovarian peritrophin</em>. The major expression similarities were primarily among pre-vitellogenic and vitellogenic females from each species, and secondly among the species <em>P. brevirostris</em> and <em>P. californiensis</em>, and the species <em>P. vannamei</em> and <em>P. stylirostris</em>. Although these four species might share a geographical location or niche, the expression of reproduction related-genes at different gonadal maturity stages exhibited species-specific variations.