Abstract
Background Sturgeons (Acipenseriformes) are polyploid chondrostean fish that constitute an important model species for studying development and evolution in vertebrates. To better understand the mechanisms of reproduction regulation in sturgeon, this study combined PacBio isoform sequencing (Iso-Seq) with Illumina short-read RNA-seq methods to discover full-length genes involved in early gametogenesis of the Amur sturgeon, Acipenser schrenckii .Results A total of 50.04 G subread bases were generated from two SMRT cells, and herein 164,618 nonredundant full-length transcripts (unigenes) were produced with an average length of 2,782 bp from gonad tissues (three testes and four ovaries) from seven 3-year-old A. schrenckii individuals. The number of ovary-specific expressed unigenes was greater than those of testis (19,716 vs. 3,028), and functional assignment indicated that 6 of 14 annotated KEGG pathways were directly ovary-related and had abundant transcripts and differential expression genes. Importantly, 60 early gametogenesis-related genes (involving 755 unigenes) were successfully identified, and exactly 50 percent (30/60) of those showed differential expression in testes and ovaries. The Amh and Gsdf with testis-biased expression, and Foxl2 and Cyp19a with ovary-biased expression strongly suggested the important regulatory roles in spermatogenesis and oogenesis of A. schrenckii , respectively. We also found the four novel Sox9 transcript variants, which increase the numbers of regulatory genes and imply function complexity of early gametogenesis. Finally, a total of 236,672 AS events (involving 36,522 unigenes) were detected, and 10,556 putative long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) and 4,339 predicted transcript factors (TFs) were also respectively identified, which all significantly associated with the early gametogenesis of A. schrenckii .Conclusions Overall, our results provide new genetic resources of full-length transcription data and information as a genomic-level reference for sturgeon. Crucially, we explored the comprehensive genetic characteristics that differ between the testes and ovaries of A. schrenckii in the early gametogenesis stage. These provide candidate genes and theoretical basis for further the mechanisms of reproduction regulation of sturgeon.