Hepatic transcriptome analysis of juvenile GIFT tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), fed diets supplemented with different concentrations of resveratrol

- Tilapia exposed to resveratrol showed significant expression of 1444-3135 genes.
- significant genes were associated with immune response.
- The lowest effect concentration of resveratrol was 0.025 g/kg.

The GIFT (Genetically Improved Farmed Tilapia) tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus, is cultured widely for the production of freshwater fish in China. Streptococcosis, which is related to pathogenic infections, occurs frequently in juvenile and adult female GIFT individuals. Resveratrol (RES) has been used in feed to control these infections in freshwater tilapia. To address the effects of RES on tilapia, we used high-throughput RNA sequencing technology (RNA-Seq, HiSeq. 2500) to explore the global transcriptomic response and specific involvement of hepatic mRNA of juvenile O. niloticus fed with diets containing different concentrations of (0, 0.025, 0.05, and 0.1 g/kg) RES. A total of > 24,513,018 clean reads were generated and then assembled into 23,244 unigenes. The unigenes were annotated by comparing them against non-redundant protein sequence (Nr), non-redundant nucleotide (Nt), Swiss-Prot, Pfam, Gene Ontology database (GO), Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COG) and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) databases, and 12,578 unigenes were annotated to the GO database. A total of 1444 (0.025 g/kg RES), 1526 (0.05 g/kg RES), and 3135 (0.1 g/kg RES) genes were detected as significant differentially expressed genes (DEGs), when compared with the controls. A total of 6 (0.025 vs 0.05 g/kg RES), 19 (0.025 vs 0.1 g/kg RES), and 124 (0.05 vs 0.1 g/kg RES) genes were detected as significant DEGs. Six genes, including dnah7x1, sox4, fam46a, hsp90a, ddit4, and nmrk2, were associated with an immune response. These findings provide information on the innate immunity of GIFT and might contribute to the development of strategies for the effective management of diseases and long-term sustainability of O. niloticus culture.