Inflammation and apoptosis pathways mediated the stress response of Litopenaeus vannamei to acute cold and air exposure during waterless live transportation: Based on ultrastructure and transcriptome

the combination of acute cold (AC) and waterless duration (WD) constitutes the major environmental stress and induces the damage or even mortality to shrimp L. vannamei during live transport, whereas the responding mechanism to AC + WD at molecular level remains unknown. The present study aims to clarify the responding mechanism of L. vannamei to AC + WD stress by ultrastructural observation and transcriptomic analysis on hepatopancreas tissue. The results showed that the dramatical oxidative stress induced by AC + WD significantly mediated the alteration of amino acids and energy metabolism. Furthermore, KEGG pathway enrichment analysis revealed that the genes including DDO, GOT1, IDH1 and BBOX1 involved in energy metabolism and were significantly down-regulated, while some apoptosis- and inflammation-related genes such as DRONC, AP-1, and COX-2 were significantly up-regulated under AC + WD stress in comparison with those at normal control (all p < 0.05 or 0.01). These findings suggested that metabolic processes mediate the stress-induced damages of L. vannamei during waterless transport. Moreover, the significant overexpression of apoptosis-and inflammation-related proteins, and levels of inflammation cytokines in serum of shrimps strongly demonstrated the implication of inflammation and apoptosis pathways in stress-induced ultrastructural damage. These findings deepen our understanding into the response mechanisms of L. vannamei to AC + WD stress and provide the potential controlling biomarkers for transportation management.