De novo transcriptome sequencing of marine-derived Aspergillus glaucus and comparative analysis of metabolic and developmental variations in response to salt stress

• Published in: Genes & genomics Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 317 - 329
• Main Authors: Liu, Shaomei, Li, Jiaxin, Wu, Yuan, Ren, Yanna, Liu, Qi, Wang, Qiyao, Zhou, Xiangshan, Cai, Menghao, Zhang, Yuanxing
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Seoul The Genetics Society of Korea 01.03.2017; Springer Nature B.V; 한국유전학회
• Subjects: Abiotic stress; Animal Genetics and Genomics; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biosynthesis; Comparative analysis; Fungi; Gene expression; Human Genetics; Illumination; Life Sciences; MAP kinase; Marine environment; Metabolism; Metabolites; Microbial Genetics and Genomics; Plant Genetics and Genomics; Polyketides; Research Article; Ribonucleic acid; RNA; Salt; Secondary metabolites; 생물학; Marine fungi; Secondary metabolites; Salt stress; Asexual development; RNA-Seq
• ISSN: 1976-9571; 2092-9293
• DOI: 10.1007/s13258-016-0497-0

Aspergillus glaucus HB1-19 is a typical marine-derived fungus preferring the dependence on sea water for its growth, asexual development and polyketides biosynthesis. Therein, salt stress greatly functions even in superior to light illumination, which is also a critical regulation signal for fungi. Here, comparative RNA-seq analysis of this strain was performed under conditions of salt-stress + dark (group A), non salt-stress + dark (group B), salt-stress + light (group C). The RNA-seq generated a total of 19,024 unigenes with an average length of 1415 bp. Differentially expressed genes were very similar between group A and group C but greatly differed between group A and group B, proving that salt stress functioned superior to light illumination globally. Salt stress highly enhanced primary metabolism and activated Ras and MAPK signaling pathways. There seems no direct interaction between asexual development and polyketides biosynthesis. Salt stress inhibited terpenoids biosynthesis but showed little influences on polyketide pathway as well as other secondary metabolism pathways. These findings provide a better understanding of marine fungi adapting to marine environment. Also, it indicates that the so-called ‘salt stress-induced’ may truly be a ‘metal ions-induced’ for biosynthesis of secondary metabolites in marine fungi.