Transcriptome analysis provides genome annotation and expression profiles in the central nervous system of Lymnaea stagnalis at different ages

AbstractMolecular studies of the freshwater snail Lymnaea stagnalis, a unique model organism for neurobiology research, has been severely hindered by the lack of sufficient genomic information. As part of our ongoing effort studying L. stagnalis neuronal growth and connectivity at various developmental stages, we provide the first age-specific transcriptome analysis and gene annotation of young, adult, and old L. stagnalis central nervous system (CNS). RNA sequencing using Illumina NovaSeq 6000 platform produced 56-69 millions of 150 bp paired-end reads, and 74% of these reads were mapped to the draft genome of L. stagnalis. We provide gene annotations for 32,288 coding sequences with a minimum of 100 codons, contributing to the largest number of annotated genes for the L. stagnalis genome to date. Lastly, transcriptomic analyses reveal age-specific differentially expressed genes and enriched pathways in young, adult, and old CNS. These datasets represent the largest and most updated L. stagnalis CNS transcriptomes.