Abstract
The sea cucumber Holothuria leucospilota is an economically and ecologically important tropical species. Following development into juveniles, H. leucospilota undergoes a color change from white to black, involving a pigmentation process for over a period of several months. In this study, a combination of liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) and Next-Generation sequencing (NGS) were employed to investigate the changes in metabolomic and transcriptomic profiles during pigmentation in H. leucospilota juveniles. The metabolomic analysis identified a total of 341 metabolites, of which 52 were found to be differentially regulated (P < 0.05 and VIP > 1), with 27 being upregulated in white individuals and 25 in black individuals. Additionally, 632 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified, with 380 genes upregulated in white samples and 252 genes upregulated in black samples. Interestingly, the melanin content and tyrosinase transcript levels did not display significant differences between the two groups. Metabolomic data suggested the involvement of the linoleic acid metabolic pathway in pigmentation. Transcriptomic analysis, coupled with realtime PCR validation, revealed a decrease in the transcript levels of digestive enzymes like α-amylase, maltase-glucoamylase, and trehalase after the juveniles changed to black. Furthermore, the mRNA expressions of major yolk proteins showed a decline, indicating a shift in the accumulation of protein nutrient sources. Overall, our findings suggest that during the pigmentation process in H. leucospilota, no significant changes were observed in the classical melanin pathway, while notable alterations were observed in their nutritional status. This study provides valuable insights into the regulatory mechanisms of pigmentation in marine organisms.
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The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found below: BioProject, accession number: PRJNA997441.
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Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42176132, 41906101), the National Key R & D Program of China (2022YFD2401301, 2018YFD0901605), and the Key Deployment Project of Centre for Ocean Mega-Research of Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (COMS2020Q03).
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Conceptualization: XJ and TC; investigation: JH, ZE, WP, BM, and YL; methodology: JH, ZL, TL, and CR; formal analysis: JH, ZE and ZL; writing—original draft preparation: JH and TC; writing—review and editing: XJ and TC; funding acquisition: CH, XJ, and TC; resources: TL, CR, PL, XW, and CH; supervision: XW, CH, and TC.
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Huang, J., E, Z., Pan, W. et al. Metabolome and Transcriptome Association Analysis Reveals the Link Between Pigmentation and Nutrition Utilization in the Juveniles of Sea Cucumber Holothuria leucospilota. Mar Biotechnol 25, 1110–1122 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-023-10263-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-023-10263-y