Antarctic krill 454 pyrosequencing reveals chaperone and stress transcriptome ...

• Main Authors: Toullec, Jean-Yves, Meng, Yan, Guan, Leluo, Clark, Melody S., Moore, Stephen S., Thorne, Michael A. S., Peck, Lloyd S.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: University of Alberta Library 2011
• Subjects: Sequence Alignment; Sequence Motif Analysis; Sequence Databases; Sequence Similarity Searching; Chaperone Proteins; Antarctica; Heat Shock Response; Protein Sequencing; Antarctic; Southern Ocean; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctic Krill; Euphausia superba
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7939/r3q23rd2n; https://ualberta.scholaris.ca/handle/123456789/15374

Background The Antarctic krill Euphausia superba is a keystone species in the Antarctic food chain. Not only is it a significant grazer of phytoplankton, but it is also a major food item for charismatic megafauna such as whales and seals and an important Southern Ocean fisheries crop. Ecological data suggest that this species is being affected by climate change and this will have considerable consequences for the balance of the Southern Ocean ecosystem. Hence, understanding how this organism functions is a priority area and will provide fundamental data for life history studies, energy budget calculations and food web models. Methodology/Principal Findings The assembly of the 454 transcriptome of E. superba resulted in 22,177 contigs with an average size of 492bp (ranging between 137 and 8515bp). In depth analysis of the data revealed an extensive catalogue of the cellular chaperone systems and the major antioxidant proteins. Full length sequences were characterised for the chaperones HSP70, HSP90 and the ...