Exploring Early Micronutrient Deficiencies in Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) by Next-Generation Sequencing Technology – From Black Box to Functional Genomics

This work studies final nutritional status and transcriptional responses of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss Walbaum 1792) (28 g) after a 10 week feeding experiment designed to elucidate the effect of adding a vitamin and mineral premix on growth, health, and nutritional endpoints. Juvenile fish were fed a either a diet supplemented with a vitamin and mineral premix (Diet S) or the same diet without premix supplementation (Diet U). The analyzed micronutrient composition of diets differed accordingly. Pooled livers from 15 fish from each dietary group were used to create suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) cDNA libraries that were sequenced with 454 FLX GS Titanium Technology. In total 552 812 reads were sequenced from the two cDNA libraries. Ingenuity pathway analysis (IPA) was then used to characterize the hepatic transcriptome of the two dietary groups of rainbow trout. In the present communication we discuss how selected micronutrients may affect the transcriptome at suboptimal status by directly impacting the cellular metabolism, functions, and structures, and by introducing respective compensatory mechanisms. Processes related to lipid metabolism, peptide hydrolysis, oxygen transportation, and growth development were mostly affected. Considering the transcriptomics data relative to changes in nutritional status from the feeding study and the background phenotypic outcome of growth performance and gill histopathology, the outcome of the transcriptional profiling are suggested to be mainly related to suboptimal pantothenic acid and vitamin C nutrition.