Proteome analysis provides insights into sex differences in Holothuria Scabra

Abstract

Sex-determining mechanism is still ambiguous for sea cucumber Holothuria scabra which only manifests gonochorism in gonad. In this study, proteomic analysis was employed to delineate sex-related proteins and genes in gonads of H. scabra, subsequently validated through Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR). A total of 5,313 proteins were identified via proteome sequencing. Among these, 817 proteins exhibited expression in both the ovary and testis, with 445 proteins displaying up-regulation and 372 proteins showing down-regulation. Furthermore, 136 and 69 proteins were identified as ovary-specific and testis-specific Differentially Abundant Proteins (DAPs), respectively. For the validation of 75 DAP coding genes, 9 genes were considered to be reliable. Notably, 25 ovary-bias proteins enriched in ribosome pathway strongly indicated the crucial role of ribosome in ovary. And 5S/18S rRNA ratio in H. Scabra may have potencial to establish a nondestructive method to distinguish sexes unambiguously. This study serves to furnish novel evidence pertaining to sex differences in H. scabra.