Acute hypoxia causes glycolysis and lipid metabolism alterations with HSPs’ persistent activation in Leiocassis longirostris

Abstract

Hypoxia is one of the common stress factors encountered in intensive farming. Leiocassis longirostris is a commercially valuable fish with limited information on the response mechanism under acute hypoxia stress. Here, we detected the asphyxiation point and simulated acute hypoxia conditions, dissolved oxygen decreased, hypoxia maintained, and reoxygenation, and investigated molecular changes in the liver of L. longirostris. Results showed that the hypoxia-inducible factor-1 signaling pathway was enriched and hif1α, arnt, hph, epo, epor, and glut1 gene expression significantly increased. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor pathway with lipid metabolism-related genes (gk, scd, acsl, pgar, lpl, fabp3) was inhibited, while the glycolysis pathway with its related genes (pk, gapdhs, ldh, pfk, aldo, hk, gpi, pfkfb3) was activated under hypoxia. Furthermore, heat shock protein family gene expression increased significantly in both hypoxia treatments and the reoxygenation group, which suggests that immune response persistent activation was induced by acute hypoxic stress. This study provided valuable information for the metabolism and immune response in L. longirostris liver under acute hypoxia and reoxygenation conditions.