Full-Length Transcriptome Reveals Heterologous Sperm Fragments in Natural Gynogenetic Grass Carp

Abstract

Grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) is one of the most economically important cyprinid species cultured in China. The diploid gynogenetic grass carp (2nGGC, 2n = 48) was generated from the hybrid of female grass carp (GC, 2n = 48) and male topmouth culter (TC, 2n = 48, Culter alburnus). This study obtained the full-length transcriptome of 2nGGC from five tissues using Pacific Biosciences (Pacbio) single-molecule real-time long-read isoform sequencing. Following the mapping of long reads to GC and TC reference genomes, a total of 1848 fusion isoforms were identified. Among them, 775 were distributed across different genomes, indicating that chimeric DNA fragments of TC were embedded in the 2nGGC genome. After removing the fusion genes and redundant isoforms, 107,721 full-length transcripts were obtained from 2nGGC, providing important full-length reference sequences for further research. Finally, comparative analysis of homologous gene variation identified 34 fragments in 2nGGC containing recombinant SNPs derived from both GC and TC. These results provide evidence that natural gynogenesis represents a form of “micro-hybridization” characterized by heterogeneous DNA fragments, distinct from traditional hybridization involving chromosome-level recombination. These findings offer valuable reference for fish genetic breeding.

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