Strobilation is a unique asexual reproduction mode of scyphozoan jellyfish, through which benthic polyp develops into pelagic medusa. It is an orderly metamorphosis process triggered by environmental signals. However, the knowledges of molecular mechanisms under the drastic morphological and physiological changes are still limited. In this study, the transcriptomes from polyps to juvenile medusae at different stages were characterized by RNA-seq in scyphozoan jellyfish Rhopilema esculentum. Among 96,076 de novo assembled unigenes, 7090 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were identified during the developmental stages. The co-expression pattern analysis of DEGs yielded 15 clusters with different expression patterns. Among them, a cluster with 388 unigenes was related to strobila. In this specific cluster, the GO terms related to “sequence-specific DNA binding transcription factor activity” and “sequence-specific DNA binding” were significantly enriched. Transcription factors, including segmentation protein even-skipped-like, segmentation polarity protein engrailed-like, homeobox proteins Otx-like, Twist-like and Cnox2-Pc-like, as well as genes such as RxR-like and Dmrtf-like, were identified to be potentially involved in strobilation. Their expression patterns and the other 11 TFs/genes involved in strobilation were confirmed with qRT-PCR methods. The present study pointed out the role of transcription factors in strobilation and produced a list of novel candidate genes for further studies. It could provide valuable information for understanding the molecular mechanisms of jellyfish strobilation.

中文翻译：

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鞘脂水母Rhopilema esculentum从息肉到美杜莎的转录组分析确定了调控疏松的潜在基因。

横行是独生子水母的一种独特的无性繁殖方式，底栖性息肉通过这种方式繁殖成中上层水母。这是环境信号触发的有序变态过程。然而，在剧烈的形态和生理变化下的分子机制的知识仍然是有限的。在这项研究中，通过裂殖子水母Rhopilema esculentum中的息肉到幼虫的不同阶段的转录组进行RNA-seq表征。。在96,076个从头组装的单基因中，在发育阶段鉴定出7090个差异表达基因（DEG）。DEGs的共表达模式分析产生了具有不同表达模式的15个簇。其中，具有388个单基因的聚类与频闪藻有关。在该特定簇中，与“序列特异性DNA结合转录因子活性”和“序列特异性DNA结合”有关的GO术语显着丰富。转录因子，包括分割蛋白偶跳过样，分割极性蛋白卷入样，同源盒蛋白Otx样，Twist样和Cnox2-Pc样，以及RxR样和Dmrtf样基因被鉴定为可能与粗化有关。用qRT-PCR方法证实了它们的表达模式和其他11个TFs /基因与Strobilation有关。本研究指出了转录因子在加强中的作用，并提出了一系列新的候选基因以供进一步研究。它可以为理解水母刺伤的分子机制提供有价值的信息。