Meeting Abstract
P3.89 Thursday, Jan. 6 Comparative transcriptomics: A study using the mirror eye of the scallop, Argopecten irradians PAIRETT, Autum N.*; SERB, Jeanne M.; Iowa State University; Iowa State University apairett@iastate.edu
Next generation sequencing has quickly grown in popularity as a method for studying a vast array of different systems, from single developmental processes to whole microorganism communities. In particular, non-model systems have benefited from these methods, as they have provided some of the tools needed to explore these systems at a genomic level. One such non-model system is the scallop. Scallops (Pectinidae) are a diverse group of marine bivalves with a unique eye type, a double retina mirror eye. While there have been many studies on the structure of the scallop eye, molecular studies are uncommon. In order to explore the genetics of this unique eye type, we sequenced the eye transcriptome of the bay scallop, Argopecten irradians, through the combined use of Sanger and 454 sequencing of a normalized cDNA library. Sanger sequencing yielded 1920 sequences, while 454 sequencing produced >112,000 reads, which were assembled into 3495 continuous sequences (contigs). Assembly of both sets of sequences produced 2993 contigs and 402 single sequences, 66.5% of which were annotated through BLAST. Gene Ontology (GO) analysis of the transcriptome shows that the most common gene functions are related to metabolic processes (19%), protein binding (15%), and structure (11%), with 3% of the GO annotated sequences related to vision and/or neural activities. We then compared eye transcriptome databases in order to assess the level of gene expression conservation between the scallop mirror eye and the camera-type eyes found in relatively closely related (octopus) and more distantly related (vertebrate) animals, as well as the compound eyes of arthropods. Through this analysis, we were able to test the hypothesis that similarity of gene expression among eyes depends more on eye type (camera vs. mirror vs. compound) than phylogenetic relatedness.
