Transcriptome analysis of stinging catfish (Heteropneustes fossilis) kidney reveals its role during adaptation to hypertonic environment

Transcriptome analysis of stinging catfish (Heteropneustes fossilis) kidney reveals its role during adaptation to hypertonic environment | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Transcriptome analysis of stinging catfish (Heteropneustes fossilis) kidney reveals its role during adaptation to hypertonic environment Priyambada Chutia, Manas Das, Nirmalendu Saha This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-4637649/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 25 May, 2025 Read the published version in Biochemical Genetics → Version 1 posted 5 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Background The facultative air-breather stinging catfish Heteropneustes fossilis , can easily adapt to anisotonic environment up to a level of 6 ppt. The teleost kidney is an essential osmoregulatory organ and plays a vital role in immune system maintenance. Methods and Results We took kidney samples from control and 100 mM NaCl-treated stinging catfish to study their adaptive responses to salinity stress. We used high-throughput sequencing followed by de novo transcriptome assembly to analyze the transcriptome of the fish. A total of 89,813 unigene transcripts with 47.28% GC content and 901 bp average length were produced during the final contig assembly. A BLAST search revealed that 45,855 unigenes had a considerable amount of similarity to sequences found in the Swiss-Prot and Ref-Seq databases. Comparative transcriptome analysis revealed that 1660 genes were differentially expressed (693 were upregulated and 967 downregulated) in the kidneys of fish treated with NaCl compared to control kidneys. Several GO pathway terms, including "inflammatory response" and "neutrophil chemotaxis" in the biological process category, "cytoplasm" and "integral component of membrane" in the cellular component category, and "metal ion binding" and "DNA binding," in the molecular function category, were found to be significantly over-represented by enrichment and functional analysis of the DEGs. Additionally, there was an overrepresentation of KEGG pathways like "chemokine signaling pathway," "cytokine-cytokine receptor interaction," and "metabolic pathways." Conclusion The current work demonstrates that tolerance to hypertonic environmental stress necessitates the activation of many molecular pathways involved in sustaining the physiological systems in air-breathing stinging catfish. Heteropneustes fossilis High throughput sequencing Transcriptome Hypersalinity Osmoregulation Environmental stress Full Text Additional Declarations Table 1 to 4 are available in the Supplementary Files section. Supplementary Files Table1.docx Table2.docx Table3.docx Table4.docx Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 25 May, 2025 Read the published version in Biochemical Genetics → Version 1 posted Reviewers agreed at journal 09 Jul, 2024 Reviewers invited by journal 07 Jul, 2024 Editor assigned by journal 28 Jun, 2024 Submission checks completed at journal 28 Jun, 2024 First submitted to journal 25 Jun, 2024 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-4637649","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":329415640,"identity":"6aba3f5d-3006-4c56-a918-1077d2221459","order_by":0,"name":"Priyambada Chutia","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Gauhati University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Priyambada","middleName":"","lastName":"Chutia","suffix":""},{"id":329415641,"identity":"e758c8b0-11ee-4d84-a229-a3e90ca24bbf","order_by":1,"name":"Manas 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Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"Heteropneustes fossilis, High throughput sequencing, Transcriptome, Hypersalinity, Osmoregulation, Environmental stress","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-4637649/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-4637649/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003ch2\u003eBackground\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe facultative air-breather stinging catfish \u003cem\u003eHeteropneustes fossilis\u003c/em\u003e, can easily adapt to anisotonic environment up to a level of 6 ppt. The teleost kidney is an essential osmoregulatory organ and plays a vital role in immune system maintenance.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMethods and Results\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWe took kidney samples from control and 100 mM NaCl-treated stinging catfish to study their adaptive responses to salinity stress. We used high-throughput sequencing followed by \u003cem\u003ede novo\u003c/em\u003e transcriptome assembly to analyze the transcriptome of the fish. A total of 89,813 unigene transcripts with 47.28% GC content and 901 bp average length were produced during the final contig assembly. A BLAST search revealed that 45,855 unigenes had a considerable amount of similarity to sequences found in the Swiss-Prot and Ref-Seq databases. Comparative transcriptome analysis revealed that 1660 genes were differentially expressed (693 were upregulated and 967 downregulated) in the kidneys of fish treated with NaCl compared to control kidneys. 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