Transcriptomic analysis reveals nanoplastics-induced apoptosis, autophagy and immune response in Litopenaeus vannamei

Increasing attention is being paid to the toxic physiological effects of nanoplastics (NPs) on aquatic organisms. However, few studies have systematically evaluated the regulatory mechanisms of NPs on immune response in crustaceans. In this study, a 28-day chronic exposure experiment was conducted in which shrimps were exposed to various 80-nm polystyrene NPs concentrations (0, 0.1, 1, 5 and 10 mg/L). Transcriptomic analysis was used to investigate the regulatory mechanisms of NPs in immune response of Litopenaeus vannamei. With increasing NPs concentration, the total hemocyte count (THC) content decreased, while phagocytosis rate (PR) and respiratory burst (RB) showed trends of first rising and then falling. High concentration (10 mg/L) of NPs caused the destruction of hepatopancreas tissue structure, the shedding of microvilli, the increase number of hepatocyte apoptosis and autophagy structure. With increasing NPs concentration, the lysozyme (Lys), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and glutathione peroxidase (GPx) activities first increased and then decrease, while contents of lipid peroxidation and malondialdehyde increased; the expression levels of Toll, MyD88, GPx, SOD, proPO, Lys, and ALF generally increased at first and then decreased. Transcriptional sequencing analysis showed that the pathway of differentially expressed genes in KEGG enrichment mainly included lysosome (ko04142), apoptosis (ko04210) pathways, indicating that the NPs mainly affected the immune regulatory mechanism. Further analysis by Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) showed that the up-regulation pathways of NPs activation mainly included immune response-related pathways such as mitochondrial autophagy, DNA repair, autophagosomes signaling pathway. Our results indicated that NPs exposure induced oxidative stress, apoptosis and autophagy in shrimps. This study provides a basis for further understanding of the mechanisms of antioxidant immune regulation by NPs in shrimp and may serve as a reference for healthy ecological culture of shrimp.