De Novo Walleye Transcriptomic Database Pairing and Genetic Market Identification

• Published in: The FASEB Journal
• Main Authors: Landgraf, Austin E., Stewart, Nicholas, Kobayashi, Yass
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2020
• Subjects: Atlantic salmon; Salmo salar
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1096/fasebj.2020.34.s1.06476

Fish species such as yellow perch ( Perca flavescens ), Atlantic salmon ( Salmo salar ) are major sport fish and commercially important in the United States. This has led to extensive research on their genome and transcriptome. Between sport and commercial fishing, the walleye ( Sander vitreus ) has been established as one of the most popular fish in North America. Despite their value, no annotated transcriptome database is currently available to the public. In order to expand our understanding of walleye transcriptome, we generated a transcriptome using the Next Generation Sequencing technology. The de novo transcriptome assembly from walleye brain tissue was constructed using RNA samples harvested from sexually mature male and female walleye (n=5 per sex). Sequence from the walleye transcriptome was aligned to the yellow perch transcriptome. Over 8400 fully assembled transcripts from the walleye transcriptome were identified. We were able to recover over 90% of the BUSCO genes associated with bony fish, indicating a quality assembly. Currently, we are expanding upon our original list of 8400 annotated transcripts by using possible open reading frames as well as further identifying partially assembled transcripts in our assembly. Our annotated transcriptome should provide tools for further research in physiology, evolutionary history, and ecology.