Identification of a new set of polypeptidic sex pheromones from cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis)

The common English Channel cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) reproduces every year on very localized coastal spawning areas after a west-east horizontal migration of several tens of kilometers (80-200 km). The massive arrival of spawners on the coasts of west Cotentin and the Bay of Seine is suspected to be driven by the action of sex pheromones expressed and secreted by one of the accessory sex glands of sexually mature females, the oviduct gland. The present study aims to verify the existence of polypeptide pheromones, of a higher molecular weight than those described above. Their size could confer them a wider range of action than that of the previously identified peptide pheromones. The implementation of an experimental strategy combining transcriptomics and proteomics with functional tests and an in silico study led to the identification of a cocktail of pheromones with molecular weights ranging between 22 and 26 kDa. 

Datasets published :

• GOVI-GNP-EST.fasta : Sepia officinalis EST database sequence by Sanger technology BigDye V3,1 (Applied Biosystem) for oviduct and main nidamental glands. Methodology is described in Enault et al. 2012.  (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0046531) 
• Sepia_officinalis.Govi.annot.fasta :  Sepia officinalis RNAseq assembly (Trinity) from oviduct gland -  annotation from blastn vs nr database - evalue - Bioproject PRJNA242869. The methodology is described in Cornet et al. 2014 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jprot.2014.05.019) 
• Sepia_officinalis.Govi.rsem.results.isoforms.tab : Sepia officinalis RNAseq assembly (Trinitry) from oviduct glands - expression level (from rsem quatification). The methodology is described in Cornet et al. 2014 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jprot.2014.05.019)  
• Sepia_officinalis_pheromones.fasta : Sepia officinalis sexual pheromones (nucleotides and amino acid)