Transcriptome response to temperature stress in the wolf spider Pardosa pseudoannulata (Araneae: Lycosidae)

Abstract

The wolf spider Pardosa pseudoannulata is a dominant predator in paddy ecosystem and an important biological control agent of rice pests. Temperature represents a primary factor influencing its biology and behavior, although the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unknown. To understand the response of P. pseudoannulata to temperature stress, we performed comparative transcriptome analyses of spider adults exposed to 10°C and 40°C for 12 h. We obtained 67,725 assembled unigenes, 21,765 of which were annotated in P. pseudoannulata transcriptome libraries, and identified 905 and 834 genes significantly up- or down-regulated by temperature stress. Functional categorization revealed the differential regulation of transcription, signal transduction, and metabolism processes. Calcium signaling pathway and metabolic pathway involving respiratory chain components played important roles in adapting to low temperature, whereas at high temperature, oxidative phosphorylation and amino acid metabolism were critical. Differentially expressed ribosomal protein genes contributed to temperature stress adaptation, and heat shock genes were significantly up-regulated. This study represents the first report of transcriptome identification related to the Araneae species in response to temperature stress. These results will greatly facilitate our understanding of the physiological and biochemical mechanisms of spiders in response to temperature stress.

Keywords: Gene regulation; Pardosa pseudoannulata; temperature stress; transcriptome; wolf spider.

Figure 1

The female and male of Pardosa pseudoannulata in the field.

Figure 2

Species distribution of the BLASTx results based on the NR database for all annotated unigenes.

Figure 3

The differentially expressed genes numbers associated with low (TC vs. TL) and high (TC vs. TH) temperature stress.

Figure 4

Histogram of Gene Ontology (GO) classification of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) in TC versus TL (A) and TC versus TH (B). The red histogram indicates all the annotated uigenes in each subcategory, the blue histogram indicates all the annotated DEGs in each subcategory. The right y‐axis indicates the number of annotated genes in each subcategory, the red numbers corresponding to the annotated uigenes, the blue numbers corresponding to the annotated DEGs. The left y‐axis indicates the percentage of annotated uigenes or DEGs in that main category.

Figure 5

Clusters of Orthologous Groups consensus sequence functional classification of differentially expressed genes in TC versus TL (A) and TC versus TH (B).

Figure 6

Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes pathways Enrichment analysis of differentially expressed genes in TC versus TL (A) and TC versus TH (B).

Figure 7

qRT‐PCR validation of mRNA‐seq data for unigene expression levels. The y‐axis indicates the relative expression levels, (A) represent each unigene in TL compared with TC, (B) represent each unigene in TH compared with TC, each error bar indicates the standard error.