A transcriptome resource for pharaoh cuttlefish (Sepia pharaonis) after ink ejection by brief pressing

Ink ejection is one of the most important defense mechanisms against external stimuli for pharaoh cuttlefish (Sepia pharaonis). The molecular changes during this process remain unknown. To understand the transcriptome changes after ink ejection by brief pressing, two cDNA libraries of pharaoh cuttlefish, from the inkjet group and control group were sequenced using Illumina HiSeq™ 2000. A total of 9,255,502,440 nt bases were obtained and by de novo assembly, 73,298 unigenes were generated, which first provided numerous expressed sequence tags from pharaoh cuttlefish. By comparing the expression levels between the two groups, we identified 7064 up-regulated and 2024 down-regulated genes after ink ejection. These differentially-expressed genes included genes related to immunity, cancer, and blood coagulation, which indicated the various effects after ink ejection by brief pressing. These results provide new valuable resources for functional genomic and genetic studies on pharaoh cuttlefish.