Transcriptome Analysis of the Marine Nematode Litoditis marina in a Chemically Defined Food Environment with Stearic Acid Supplementation

Stearic acid represents one of the most abundant fatty acids in the Western diet and profoundly regulates health and diseases of animals and human beings. We previously showed that stearic acid supplementation promoted development of the terrestrial model nematodeCaenorhabditis elegansin chemically defined CeMM food environment. However, whether stearic acid regulates development of other nematodes remains unknown. Here, we found that dietary supplementation with stearic acid could promote the development of the marine nematodeLitoditis marina, belonging to the same family asC. elegans, indicating the conserved roles of stearic acid in developmental regulation. We further employed transcriptome analysis to analyze genome-wide transcriptional signatures ofL. marinawith dietary stearic acid supplementation. We found that stearic acid might promote development ofL. marinavia upregulation of the expression of genes involved in aminoacyl-tRNA biosynthesis, translation initiation and elongation, ribosome biogenesis, and transmembrane transport. In addition, we observed that the expression of neuronal signaling-related genes was decreased. This study provided important insights into how a single fatty acid stearic acid regulates development of marine nematode, and further studies with CRISPR genome editing will facilitate demonstrating the molecular mechanisms underlying how a single metabolite regulates animal development and health.Keywords:marine nematode;stearic acid;CeMM;development;transcriptome;protein translation;neuronal signaling