De novo assembly and characterization of seabass Lateolabrax japonicus transcriptome and expression of hepatic genes following different dietary phosphorus/calcium levels

Fish farming seriously influences the aquatic environment because most dietary phosphorus (P) is excreted in the effluent. To increase the P utilization in fish, molecular techniques should be explored given the remarkable development of these techniques. Thus, to identify the candidate genes related to P utilization and molecular alterations following administration of a P-deficient diet in seabass Lateolabrax japonicus, we assessed the de novo pituitary, gill, intestine, liver, kidney, scales and vertebra transcriptomes, and we compared the expression of hepatic genes with three diets varying in P and Ca levels: diet I (0.4% P, 0.3% Ca), diet II (0.8% P, 0.3% Ca), and diet III (0.8% P, 3% Ca). In total, we identified 99,392 unigenes, and 37,086 (37.31%) unigenes were annotated. The results showed that 48 unigenes were significantly (P < 0.05) up-regulated, while 55 genes were significantly down-regulated in the liver of group I compared with group II. Offering the P-sufficient and high Ca diet, diet III significantly up-regulated 24 unigenes and down-regulated 46 genes in the liver. There were significant differences in the regulation of 8 unigenes (3 up-regulated and 5 down-regulated) between groups II and III. Gene ontology (GO) functional enrichment and KEGG pathway analysis of differently expressed genes were performed for each pair of groups. The GO analysis showed that a large number of biological processes were significantly altered between P-deficient and P-sufficient treatments (I vs II and I vs III). Comparing group I and group II, seven KEGG terms were enriched significantly: glycine, serine and threonine metabolism, one carbon pool by folate, arginine and proline metabolism, the biosynthesis of unsaturated fatty acids, fatty acid elongation, drug metabolism-cytochrome P450, and fatty acid metabolism. There was no significantly enriched KEGG pathway between groups II and III. In conclusion, our study revealed that a P-deficient diet could increase catabolism and decrease anabolism of protein, as highlighted by low protein efficiency in fish fed the P-deficient diet. Furthermore, P-deficiency could motivate the biosynthesis of fatty acids. However, the dietary Ca level had no significant effect on the growth and expression of hepatic genes in L. japonicus.