Figure 2

Transcriptional landscapes of zebrafish larvae exposed to lethal cold stress and rewarming. (A) Samples used for RNA-seq. Four groups of samples were included in the analysis: the controls (ctrl) maintained at 28 °C; samples exposed to 10 °C lethal cold (lc) stress; samples exposed to 10 °C cold stress for 12 h and then recovered at 28 °C (re); samples containing the normal (er_nor) and abnormal (er_ab) fish after 24 h of both cold exposure and recovery. (B) Results of the principal component analysis (PCA) indicate trajectories of gene expression changes during normal development, upon cold stress and recovery. Some data points were omitted for the readability of the chart. (C) Expression of the top 100 genes with the highest loadings for PC1 and PC2. (D) Numbers of differentially expressed genes (DEGs). Three series of DEGs were displayed, development related (dr), cold stress regulated (lc) and genes differentially expressed during recovery (re). (E) Venn analysis for the DEGs identified by different comparisons. The source and number of DEGs are displayed; dr, lc and re, the same as in (D), er indicates DEGs between the normal and abnormal fish after cold exposure and recovery. Genes highlighted with the red diamond were used to identify potential molecular markers for cold-induced damage.