The aquaculture of sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus (Echinodermata, Holothuroidea) has grown rapidly during recent years and has become an important sector of the marine industry in Northern China. However, with the rapid growth of the industry and the use of non-standard culture techniques, epidemic diseases of A. japonicus now pose increasing problems to the industry. To screen the genes with stress response to bacterial infection in sea cucumber at a genome wide level, we constructed a cDNA library from A. japonicus Selenka (Aspidochirotida: Stichopodidae) after infecting them with Vibrio sp. for 48 h. Total RNA was extracted from the intestine, mesentery and coelomocyte of infected sea cucumber using Trizol and mRNA was isolated by Oligotex mRNA Kits. The ligated cDNAs were transformed into DH5α, and a library of 3.24×105 clones (3.24×105 cfu mL-1) was obtained with the sizes of inserted fragments ranging from 0.8 to 2.5 kb. Sequencing the cDNA clones resulted in a total of 1106 ESTs that passed the quality control. BlastX and BlastN searches have identified 168 (31.5%) ESTs sharing significant homology with known sequences in NCBI protein or nucleotide databases. Among a panel of 25 putative immunity-related genes, serum lectin isoform, complement component 3, complement component 3-like genes were further studied by real-time PCR and they all increased more than 5 fold in response to Vibrio sp. challenge. Our library provides a valuable molecular tool for future study of invertebrate immunity against bacterial infection and our gene expression data indicates the importance of the immune system in the evolution and development of sea cucumber.
The exceptionally large individual growth variation has been previously recognized in several sea cucumber cohorts. However, there is a lack of information regarding the mechanism of such individual differences. In this study, the sea cucumber Apostichopusjaponicus （Selenka） was reared individually in order to eliminate possible effects of social interaction, stocking density, etc. The results showed that there were substantial differences in growth among the sea cucumber individuals during the 100-day experiment. The special growth rate of the sea cucumber individuals differed by up to three folds （from 0.40% to 1.01%）, and the coefficient of variation in body weight increased from 12.04% to 40.51%. The final wet body weight, food intake and food conversion efficiency for each sea cucumber were generally positively correlated with their initial wet body weight （P〈0.05）. Energy budget of the animals showed that the food energy spent on respiration was much greater （about four folds） but energy deposited for growth was much less for （initially） smaller than for larger A. japonicus. The present result implies that there are obvious genetic differences among the sea cucumber individuals, largely accounting for the individual growth variation of the cohort sea cucumber. These results will provide some basic data for promoting selective breeding and fanning of the sea cucumber.
LIANG Miao DONG Shuanglin GAO Qinfeng WANG Fang TIAN Xiangli
Morphology and life history of a brown alga Scytosiphon lomentaria (Lyngbye) Link (Scytosiphonaceae, Phaeophyceae) were investigated from 2005 to 2009 in the coastal waters of Dalian, China. The erect thalli collected in the field were tubular, hollow, and commonly constricted at intervals. Ascocysts were presented. Plurilocular gametangia, which were positioned in continuous sori on the erect thallus surface, produced biflagellar gametes. Gametophytes were dioecious and gametes were nearly isogamous. Gametes fusion occurred in three types. Type one, female and male gametes fused directly while swimming; type two, female gamete settled first, with which a male one contacted and fused rapidly; type three, while settling adjacently, a male gamete's entire protoplast moved slowly into the previously settled female one, with only an empty cell membrane left. In culture zygotes developed into crustose sporophytes that formed unilocular sporangia. Biflagellar zoospores developed into erect thalli that formed plurilocular gametangia. The results indicated that a periodical heteromorphic alternation history with haploid gametophyte generation and diploid sporophyte generation exists in S. lomentaria of the Dalian populations.
