The gills transcriptome analysis of yellow catfish (Tachysurus fulvidraco? × P. vachellii?) under transport stress

Transport stress is a big threat to most teleost fish during production practice, causing mass loss to the aquaculture industry. Fish gills are mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue that directly contacted with water, which is the good choice to study the mechanism of transport stress. Gills transcriptome results revealed 1551 differentially expressed genes (744 up-regulated and 807 down- regulated) between the control and 16h transportation groups. The top 10 enriched KEGG pathways are all immune-related. After qRT-PCR validation, we found that the toll-like receptors and nod-like receptors signaling pathways mediate the gill's immune response to transport stress: tlr5, tnf?, hsp90?, il-1ß and map2k4 were significantly up-regulated and arrdc2 was significantly down-regulated under transport stress. These results suggested that the transport stress altered innate immunity responses and induced metabolic changes in gills of hybrid yellow catfish. In conclusion, the results provide new perspectives on immune response in yellow catfish against transport stress and provide the possibility of mining resistance genes for future optimize transportation plan. Overall design: The gills transcriptomes were examined at control group and 16 h transport group.