Full-Length Transcriptome of <i>Thalassiosira</i> <i>weissflogii</i> as a Reference Resource and Mining of Chitin-Related Genes
Haomiao Cheng,
Chris Bowler,
Xiaohui Xing,
Vincent Bulone,
Zhanru Shao,
Delin Duan
Affiliations
Haomiao Cheng
CAS and Shandong Province Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Center for Ocean Mega-Science, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China
Chris Bowler
Institut de Biologie de l’ENS (IBENS), Département de Biologie, École Normale Supérieure, CNRS, INSERM, Université PSL, 75005 Paris, France
Xiaohui Xing
Division of Glycoscience, Department of Chemistry, School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology and Health, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), AlbaNova University Centre, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden
Vincent Bulone
Division of Glycoscience, Department of Chemistry, School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry, Biotechnology and Health, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), AlbaNova University Centre, 10691 Stockholm, Sweden
Zhanru Shao
CAS and Shandong Province Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Center for Ocean Mega-Science, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China
Delin Duan
CAS and Shandong Province Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Center for Ocean Mega-Science, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China
β-Chitin produced by diatoms is expected to have significant economic and ecological value due to its structure, which consists of parallel chains of chitin, its properties and the high abundance of diatoms. Nevertheless, few studies have functionally characterised chitin-related genes in diatoms owing to the lack of omics-based information. In this study, we first compared the chitin content of three representative Thalassiosira species. Cell wall glycosidic linkage analysis and chitin/chitosan staining assays showed that Thalassiosira weissflogii was an appropriate candidate chitin producer. A full-length (FL) transcriptome of T. weissflogii was obtained via PacBio sequencing. In total, the FL transcriptome comprised 23,362 annotated unigenes, 710 long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), 363 transcription factors (TFs), 3113 alternative splicing (AS) events and 3295 simple sequence repeats (SSRs). More specifically, 234 genes related to chitin metabolism were identified and the complete biosynthetic pathways of chitin and chitosan were explored. The information presented here will facilitate T. weissflogii molecular research and the exploitation of β-chitin-derived high-value enzymes and products.
