Glucose or Altered Ceramide Biosynthesis Mediate Oxygen Deprivation Sensitivity Through Novel Pathways Revealed by Transcriptome Analysis in Caenorhabditis elegans

RNA-Seq analysis was performed to assess how a glucose-supplemented diet and/or a hyl-2 mutation altered the transcriptome. Comparison analysis of transcripts associated with anoxia sensitive animals (hyl-2(tm2331) mutation or a glucose diet) revealed 199 common transcripts encoded by genes with known or predicted functions involving innate immunity, cuticle function (collagens) or xenobiotic and endobiotic phase I and II detoxification system. mRNA profiles of OP50-fed C. elegans, glucose-fed C. elegans (N2 strain), OP50-fed C. elegans altered in ceramide metabolism (due to a hyl-2(tm2031) mutation), and glucose-fed C. elegans altered in ceramide metabolism were generated by RNA-Seq, in triplicate, using an Illumina HiSeq2000. Transcriptome data were then used for a comprehensive quantitative analysis of differential gene regulation in hyl-2(tm2031) and glucose-fed C. elegans.