Transcriptome profiling of individual larvae of two different developmental modes in the poecilogonous polychaete...

Understanding the range of biochemical and physiological phenotypes in a cohort of embryos or larvae is crucial to understanding the lifespan, dispersal potential, and recruitment success of the early life history stages of a species. In this study, a novel kinetic assay has been employed to profile the transcriptome pool complexity in individual larvae of both planktotrophic and lecithotrophic developmental modes in the poecilogonous polycheate Streblospio benedicti. Using a nano-scale synthesis strategy, the mRNA pool in a single embryo or larva can be amplified into cDNA for quantitative characterization in a high-throughput, kinetic reannealing assay in a 96-well, microtiterplate format. This assay generates transcript-pool complexity estimates at 1 degrees C temperature increments for each sample producing 3,360 quantitative measurements per 96-well plate. Measuring transcriptome complexity on 8 individual planktotrophic and 8 individual lecithotrophic larvae (with 4 duplicate assays for each individual) reveals a more complex gene expression profile in planktotrophic larvae and a lower level of interindividual variation in expression patterns in lecithotrophic larvae. Although differences in these gene expression patterns are more likely due to physiological differences between feeding and non-feeding larval types in these late-stage individuals, this is one of the first assessments of inter-individual variation in gene expression patterns in marine invertebrate larvae and indicates a large potential for developmental variability.