Homarus Americanus hepatopancreas transcriptomes associated with A. viridans infection

Aerococcus viridans var. homri is the cause of mortalities in natural populations and impounded Homarus americanus. However, there is limited research on the American lobster's immune response mechanisms against A. viridans. In the present study, RNA-seq was used to examine the expression of more than 29,000 hepatopancreatic genes in H. americanus during an A. viridans infection challenge to determine how lobster immune responses are regulated at a molecular level. Both DESeq2 and edgeR analyses were used to find differentially expressed genes. DEseq2 uncovered 1803 differentially expressed genes over infection comparisons of interest; infected at 6 h vs. control at 6 h, infected at end timepoint vs. control at end timepoint, and infected at 24 h vs. control at 6 h. We highlighted around 90 genes involved in the H. americanus immune response comprised of innate immunity-related genes.