Fig. 7
Long-lasting and intergenerational changes in immune gene expression resulting from early life microbial exposure. Significantly differentially expressed genes in ME-exposed compared to control oysters were obtained after DESeq2 comparison. Functional annotation with RGBOA performed on the DEG led to the identification of biological functions which were statistically significantly enriched in the exposed compared to control samples. a and b The heatmap represents the immune-related functions enriched in F1 (a) and F2 generation (b). The heatmap depicts the ratio of the number of significant DEGs within a biological function divided by the total number of genes belonging to that biological function for each sample analyzed. Positive ratios indicate an over-representation of a function (yellow on the heatmap), and negative ratios indicate an under-represention of a function (blue on the heatmap). c and d A special focus on genes encoding antimicrobial peptides that are differentially expressed between ME-exposed and control oysters (c) and between offspring of ME-exposed and offspring of control oysters for generation F2 (d). The heatmap depicts the log2FC of significant DEGs obtained according to the diamond bioinformatic pipeline. Overexpressed and underexpressed AMP-related genes are represented by yellow or blue color, respectively. In the F1 generation, analysis have been performed on oysters sampled during the exposure at day 2 (F1-D2) and day 10 (F1-D10), at juvenile stage just before the disease induction (F1-D120H0) and during the disease process after 6 and 12h of disease induction (F1-D120H6, F1-D120H12). In the F2 generation, analysis has been performed in larvae at day 10 (F2-D10), just before the disease induction (F2-D120H0) and during the disease process after 3, 6, and 12h of disease induction (F2-D120H3, F2-D120H6, F2-D120H12)