An Improved RNA Extraction Method for Octocorals and Its Application in Transcriptome Analysis of Dark-Induced Bleaching Octocoral

Octocorals, vital components of reef ecosystems, inhabit various marine environments across diverse climate zones, spanning from tropical shallows to frigid deep-sea regions. Certain octocoral species, notably Lobophytum and Sinularia, are particularly intriguing due to their production of diverse metabolites, warranting continuous investigation. Although octocorals played the roles in coral ecosystems, the studies are rare in comparison to scleractinian corals, especially in transcriptomic and genomic data. However, RNA extraction was massively interfered by the polysaccharides and secondary metabolites produced from octocoral holobiont. For this purpose, five lysis buffer systems and two extraction processes were examined for the RNA extraction efficiency in octocorals. We found CTAB/10%SDS as a new method for RNA extraction from six different octocoral genera. Furthermore, our new method is enable to extract RNA with good quality for downstream application such as quantitative PCR and RNA sequencing. Finally, comparative transcriptomic analysis between healthy octocorals and those dark-induced bleaching corals in Lobophytum hsiehi revealed extracellular matrix and immunity-related genes may play the important roles in coral-symbiodinium symbiosis. We believe that this study’s findings and the developed RNA extraction method will serve as valuable references for future research, particularly in octocorals.