Brain transcriptomes of harbor seals demonstrate gene expression patterns of animals undergoing a metabolic disease and a viral infection
Diseases of marine mammals can be difficult to diagnose because of their life history and protected status. Stranded marine mammals have been a particularly useful resource to discover and comprehend the diseases that plague these top predators. Additionally, advancements in high-throughput sequenci...
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crpeerj:10.7717/peerj.2819 2024-06-02T08:13:13+00:00 Brain transcriptomes of harbor seals demonstrate gene expression patterns of animals undergoing a metabolic disease and a viral infection Rosales, Stephanie M. Vega Thurber, Rebecca L. Sea Grant Starter NSF Graduate Research Fellowship 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2819 https://peerj.com/articles/2819.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/2819.xml https://peerj.com/articles/2819.html en eng PeerJ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ PeerJ volume 4, page e2819 ISSN 2167-8359 journal-article 2016 crpeerj https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2819 2024-05-07T14:14:06Z Diseases of marine mammals can be difficult to diagnose because of their life history and protected status. Stranded marine mammals have been a particularly useful resource to discover and comprehend the diseases that plague these top predators. Additionally, advancements in high-throughput sequencing (HTS) has contributed to the discovery of novel pathogens in marine mammals. In this study, we use a combination of HTS and stranded harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) to better understand a known and unknown brain disease. To do this, we used transcriptomics to evaluate brain tissues from seven neonatal harbor seals that expired from an unknown cause of death (UCD) and compared them to four neonatal harbor seals that had confirmed phocine herpesvirus (PhV-1) infections in the brain. Comparing the two disease states we found that UCD animals showed a significant abundance of fatty acid metabolic transcripts in their brain tissue, thus we speculate that a fatty acid metabolic dysregulation contributed to the death of these animals. Furthermore, we were able to describe the response of four young harbor seals with PhV-1 infections in the brain. PhV-1 infected animals showed a significant ability to mount an innate and adaptive immune response, especially to combat viral infections. Our data also suggests that PhV-1 can hijack host pathways for DNA packaging and exocytosis. This is the first study to use transcriptomics in marine mammals to understand host and viral interactions and assess the death of stranded marine mammals with an unknown disease. Furthermore, we show the value of applying transcriptomics on stranded marine mammals for disease characterization. Article in Journal/Newspaper Phoca vitulina PeerJ Publishing PeerJ 4 e2819 |
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Diseases of marine mammals can be difficult to diagnose because of their life history and protected status. Stranded marine mammals have been a particularly useful resource to discover and comprehend the diseases that plague these top predators. Additionally, advancements in high-throughput sequencing (HTS) has contributed to the discovery of novel pathogens in marine mammals. In this study, we use a combination of HTS and stranded harbor seals ( Phoca vitulina ) to better understand a known and unknown brain disease. To do this, we used transcriptomics to evaluate brain tissues from seven neonatal harbor seals that expired from an unknown cause of death (UCD) and compared them to four neonatal harbor seals that had confirmed phocine herpesvirus (PhV-1) infections in the brain. Comparing the two disease states we found that UCD animals showed a significant abundance of fatty acid metabolic transcripts in their brain tissue, thus we speculate that a fatty acid metabolic dysregulation contributed to the death of these animals. Furthermore, we were able to describe the response of four young harbor seals with PhV-1 infections in the brain. PhV-1 infected animals showed a significant ability to mount an innate and adaptive immune response, especially to combat viral infections. Our data also suggests that PhV-1 can hijack host pathways for DNA packaging and exocytosis. This is the first study to use transcriptomics in marine mammals to understand host and viral interactions and assess the death of stranded marine mammals with an unknown disease. Furthermore, we show the value of applying transcriptomics on stranded marine mammals for disease characterization. |
author2 |
Sea Grant Starter NSF Graduate Research Fellowship |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Rosales, Stephanie M. Vega Thurber, Rebecca L. |
spellingShingle |
Rosales, Stephanie M. Vega Thurber, Rebecca L. Brain transcriptomes of harbor seals demonstrate gene expression patterns of animals undergoing a metabolic disease and a viral infection |
author_facet |
Rosales, Stephanie M. Vega Thurber, Rebecca L. |
author_sort |
Rosales, Stephanie M. |
title |
Brain transcriptomes of harbor seals demonstrate gene expression patterns of animals undergoing a metabolic disease and a viral infection |
title_short |
Brain transcriptomes of harbor seals demonstrate gene expression patterns of animals undergoing a metabolic disease and a viral infection |
title_full |
Brain transcriptomes of harbor seals demonstrate gene expression patterns of animals undergoing a metabolic disease and a viral infection |
title_fullStr |
Brain transcriptomes of harbor seals demonstrate gene expression patterns of animals undergoing a metabolic disease and a viral infection |
title_full_unstemmed |
Brain transcriptomes of harbor seals demonstrate gene expression patterns of animals undergoing a metabolic disease and a viral infection |
title_sort |
brain transcriptomes of harbor seals demonstrate gene expression patterns of animals undergoing a metabolic disease and a viral infection |
publisher |
PeerJ |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2819 https://peerj.com/articles/2819.pdf https://peerj.com/articles/2819.xml https://peerj.com/articles/2819.html |
genre |
Phoca vitulina |
genre_facet |
Phoca vitulina |
op_source |
PeerJ volume 4, page e2819 ISSN 2167-8359 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2819 |
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PeerJ |
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4 |
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e2819 |
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1800736650638131200 |