Abstract
RNA editing is a widespread post-transcriptional modification mechanism in animals and plants, which playing a critical role in the adaptation of organisms to the environment. To explore the characteristics of RNA editing in intertidal mollusks, we analyzed the tissue-specific RNA editing patterns in Echinolittorina radiata, which inhabiting high tidal zones of rocky intertidal systems. Our results revealed that E. radiata had a typical RNA editing pattern, with A-to-G RNA editing type accounting for the highest proportion and displaying the motif characteristic of the adenosine deaminase acting on RNA enzymes. Significantly higher overall RNA editing level was observed in the head of E. radiata than those of the other tissues (P < 0.05). The enrichment results showed that mantle tissue had the most enriched pathways, and a large number of biological process pathways in mantle were related to the nervous system. Furthermore, RNA editing sites in the exon region predominantly resulted in synonymous substitution sites. In summary, we investigated RNA editing patterns in three tissues of E. radiata, which indicated the unique tissue differences of E. radiata.
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Data availability
The datasets generated during and analyzed during the current study are included in this published article, its supplementary information files and publicly available repositories. The sequencing data have been deposited in SRA at NCBI under the accession number PRJNA1359167.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Zhan-Wei Zhao from Ocean University of China for his help with the code running. We thank Si-Tong Zhuang from Ocean University of China for her help with E. radiata acclimation.
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This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos 42376102 and 42025604) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
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MLL and YWD contributed to the study conception and design. MLL supervised the project. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by ZQ, YJZ and CYM. The first draft of the manuscript was written by ZQ. The revised manuscript was written by ZQ, MLL, and YWD. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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In the present study, the specie used (E. radiata) is invertebrate mollusc and is not protected animal, and all animals were not collected from protected areas, no ethical committed approval is required in China.
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Qi, Z., Zhu, YJ., Ma, CY. et al. Transcriptome-wide analysis reveals tissue-specific RNA editing landscapes in marine gastropod Echinolittorina radiata. Mar Biol 173, 29 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-025-04780-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-025-04780-8