Ager-Wick E., Dirks R. P., Burgerhout E., Nourizadeh-Lillabadi R., de Wijze D. L., Spaink H. P., van den Thillart G. E. E. J. M., Tsukamoto K., Dufour Sylvie, Weltzien F. A., Henkel C. V. (2013). The pituitary gland of the European eel reveals massive expression of genes involved in the elanocortin system. Plos One, 8 (10), p. e77396. ISSN 1932-6203.
Titre du document
The pituitary gland of the European eel reveals massive expression of genes involved in the elanocortin system
Année de publication
2013
Auteurs
Ager-Wick E., Dirks R. P., Burgerhout E., Nourizadeh-Lillabadi R., de Wijze D. L., Spaink H. P., van den Thillart G. E. E. J. M., Tsukamoto K., Dufour Sylvie, Weltzien F. A., Henkel C. V.
Source
Plos One, 2013,
8 (10), p. e77396 ISSN 1932-6203
Hormones secreted from the pituitary gland regulate important processes such as development, growth and metabolism, reproduction, water balance, and body pigmentation. Synthesis and secretion of pituitary hormones are regulated by different factors from the hypothalamus, but also through feedback mechanisms from peripheral organs, and from the pituitary itself. In the European eel extensive attention has been directed towards understanding the different components of the brain-pituitary-gonad axis, but little is known about the regulation of upstream processes in the pituitary gland. In order to gain a broader mechanistic understanding of the eel pituitary gland, we have performed RNA-seq transcriptome profiling of the pituitary of prepubertal female silver eels. RNA-seq reads generated on the Illumina platform were mapped to the recently assembled European eel genome. The most abundant transcript in the eel pituitary codes for pro-opiomelanocortin, the precursor for hormones of the melanocortin system. Several genes putatively involved in downstream processing of pro-opiomelanocortin were manually annotated, and were found to be highly expressed, both by RNA-seq and by qPCR. The melanocortin system, which affects skin color, energy homeostasis and in other teleosts interacts with the reproductive system, has so far received limited attention in eels. However, since up to one third of the silver eel pituitary's mRNA pool encodes pro-opiomelanocortin, our results indicate that control of the melanocortin system is a major function of the eel pituitary.
Plan de classement
Sciences fondamentales / Techniques d'analyse et de recherche [020]
;
Limnologie biologique / Océanographie biologique [034]
Identifiant IRD
PAR00011067
