Abstract:
To reveal the regulatory role of Ca
2+ homeostasis in shrimp's ammonia nitrogen tolerance, we investigated the effects of ammonia stress on the energy metabolism and detoxification metabolism of
Litopenaeus vannamei. We divided the shrimps into six groups, which were injected with specific siRNA to suppress the expression of Ca
2+ stability regulation genes
SERCA (si-SERCA group),
MCU (si-MCU group), and
IP3R (si-IP
3R group), a group that received no substance (NI group), a group injected with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS group), and a group injected with non-coding RNA (NC group) as the control group. Then, we exposed them to a total ammonia concentration of 11.3 mg·L
−1 for 24 h under ammonia stress conditions, and measured the expression levels of energy metabolism-related genes and detoxification metabolism-related genes. The results show that the expression levels of energy metabolism-related genes
FAS,
ACC,
CPT-1,
PK,
PFK and
HK in si-SERCA group, si-MCU group and si-IP
3R group showed a significant increase compared with the control group (
p<0.05). The expression levels of detoxification metabolism-related genes
GS,
GDH and
GST in si-SERCA group were significantly higher than those in the control group at 6–24 h after stress (
p<0.05). The expression level of
GDH in si-MCU group was significantly higher than that in the control group at 6–24 h after stress, and the expression level of
GST was significantly higher than that in the control group at 6–18 h after stress (
p<0.05). The expression levels of
GS, GDH and
GST in si-IP
3R group were significantly higher than those in the control group, and the expression level of
GST was significantly higher than that in the control group at 6–24 h after stress (
p<0.05). Furthermore, the expression of energy metabolism-related genes was significantly positively correlated with the expression of detoxification metabolism-related genes (
p<0.05). The results indicate that under ammonia stress, inhibiting the expression of genes related to Ca
2+ homeostasis significantly increases the energy metabolism and detoxification metabolism levels of shrimp, thereby enhancing their ammonia tolerance.