Comparative transcriptomics of Syllidae annelids

Universität Göttingen

"This was the third time we have worked with AllGenetics. One important reason to work with them is that, especially in the case when we work with non-model organisms, it is great to discuss details of the library preparation. We were pleased to successfully characterise the first transcriptomes for a pair of marine annelids in this study"

Goal

The research team was interested in detecting gene expression changes during regeneration and regular growth in the marine annelids Sphaerosyllis hystrix and Syllis gracilis using comparative transcriptomics.

Approach

At AllGenetics, we handled the wet lab procedures: we extracted RNA from the different tissues, prepared the mRNA libraries, and sequenced them in an Illumina HiSeq 4000 PE100 lane. We delivered the raw high-throughput sequencing data so that the research team could carry out the bioinformatic analyses.

Results

A high number of differentially-expressed genes were detected by the research team during the bioinformatic analysis of the Illumina reads. The results obtained allowed them to conclude that whereas posterior regeneration and regular growth showed no significant differences in gene expression in the species studied, anterior regeneration was associated with a clear change in terms of gene expression. This research has been published in the journal BMC Genomics.