Gene expression profiling reveals functional specialization along the intestinal tract of a carnivorous teleostean fish (Dicentrarchus labrax)

High-quality sequencing reads from the intestine of European sea bass were assembled, annotated by similarity against protein reference databases and combined with nucleotide sequences from public and private databases. After redundancy filtering, 24,906 non-redundant annotated sequences encoding 15,367 different gene descriptions were obtained. These annotated sequences were used to design a custom, high-density oligo-microarray (8 x 15K) for the transcriptomic profiling of anterior (AI), middle (MI) and posterior (PI) intestinal segments. Similar molecular signatures were found for AI and MI segments, which were combined in a single group (AI-MI) whereas the PI outstood separately, with more than 1,900 differentially expressed genes with a fold-change cutoff of 2. Functional analysis revealed that molecular and cellular functions related to feed digestion and nutrient absorption and transport were over-represented in AI-MI segments. By contrast, the initiation and establishment of immune defense mechanisms became especially relevant in PI, although the microarray expression profiling validated by qPCR indicated that these functional changes are gradual from anterior to posterior intestinal segments. This functional divergence occurred in association with spatial transcriptional changes in nutrient transporters and the mucosal chemosensing system via G protein-coupled receptors. These findings contribute to identify key indicators of gut functions and to compare different fish feeding strategies and immune defense mechanisms acquired along the evolution of teleosts.