Transcriptome profiling of developmental and xenobiotic responses in a keystone soil animal, the oligochaete annelid Lumbricus rubellus

Owen, J., Hedley, B. A., Svendsen, C., Wren, Jodie, Jonker, M. J., Hankard, P. K., Lister, L. J., Sturzenbaum, S. R., Morgan, Andrew John, Spurgeon, David J., Blaxter, Mark L. and Kille, Peter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6023-5221 2008. Transcriptome profiling of developmental and xenobiotic responses in a keystone soil animal, the oligochaete annelid Lumbricus rubellus. BMC Genomics 9 , 266. 10.1186/1471-2164-9-266

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Abstract

Background: Natural contamination and anthropogenic pollution of soils are likely to be major determinants of functioning and survival of keystone invertebrate taxa. Soil animals will have both evolutionary adaptation and genetically programmed responses to these toxic chemicals, but mechanistic understanding of such is sparse. The clitellate annelid Lumbricus rubellus is a model organism for soil health testing, but genetic data have been lacking. Results: We generated a 17,000 sequence expressed sequence tag dataset, defining ~8,100 different putative genes, and built an 8,000-element transcriptome microarray for L. rubellus. Strikingly, less than half the putative genes (43%) were assigned annotations from the gene ontology (GO) system; this reflects the phylogenetic uniqueness of earthworms compared to the well-annotated model animals. The microarray was used to identify adult- and juvenile-specific transcript profiles in untreated animals and to determine dose-response transcription profiles following exposure to three xenobiotics from different chemical classes: inorganic (the metal cadmium), organic (the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon fluoranthene), and agrochemical (the herbicide atrazine). Analysis of these profiles revealed compound-specific fingerprints which identify the molecular responses of this annelid to each contaminant. The data and analyses are available in an integrated database, LumbriBASE. Conclusion: L. rubellus has a complex response to contaminant exposure, but this can be efficiently analysed using molecular methods, revealing unique response profiles for different classes of effector. These profiles may assist in the development of novel monitoring or bioremediation protocols, as well as in understanding the ecosystem effects of exposure.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Biosciences
Additional Information:	Pdf uploaded in accordance with publisher's policy at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/1471-2164/ (accessed 25/02/2014)
Publisher:	BioMed Central
ISSN:	1471-2164
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	05 Jul 2023 19:26
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/9254

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