Transcriptomic analysis of Neocaridina denticulate sinensis hepatopancreas indicates immune changes after copper exposure

Neocaridina denticulate sinensis is a promising crustacean model species due to its merits in raising and breeding. However, its molecular responses to copper remains largely unknown. In the present research, RNA-seq was used to mine the alteration in transcriptome of N. denticulate sinensis hepatopancreas under copper exposure. A total of 16,423 DEGs was identified between control and Cu2+ treatment groups. GO enrichment analysis of all DEGs suggested down-regulated genes exceeded up-regulated genes in all the significantly enriched terms, except for RNA polymerase III complex (GO:0005666). KEGG analysis showed Cu exposure only induced two significantly enriched pathways, including Phagosome (ko04145) and Pathogenic Escherichia coli infection (ko05130). Besides, pattern recognition receptors as Toll, lectin B, CTL1 and SRB, AMPs as crustin type I, lysozyme, and NOS were down-regulated after Cu2+ exposure, while hemocyanin, MT, HSP70 and HSP90 were significantly up-regulated, implying these molecules may play vital role in Cu2+ detoxification of N. denticulate sinensis. Our results here provide research direction of heavy metal detoxification of N. denticulate sinensis, simultaneously enriched its genomic information.