International Journal of Molecular Sciences Article Insights into Body Size Evolution: A Comparative Transcriptome Study on Three Species of Asian Sisoridae Catfish Wansheng Jiang 1,2,† , Yicheng Guo 1,† , Kunfeng Yang 1,2, Qiong Shi 3,* and Junxing Yang 1,2,* 1 State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China;
[email protected] (W.J.);
[email protected] (Y.G.);
[email protected] (K.Y.) 2 Yunnan Key Laboratory of Plateau Fish Breeding, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650223, China 3 Shenzhen Key Lab of Marine Genomics, Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Molecular Breeding in Marine Economic Animals, BGI Academy of Marine Sciences, BGI Marine, BGI, Shenzhen 5180083, China * Correspondence:
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[email protected] (J.Y.); Tel.: +86-755-3630-7807 (Q.S.); +86-871-65191652 (J.Y.) † These authors contributed equally to this work. Received: 25 January 2019; Accepted: 18 February 2019; Published: 21 February 2019 Abstract: Body size is one of the most important attributes of a species, but the basic question of why and how each species reaches a different “right size” is still largely unknown. Herein, three phylogenetically closely related catfishes from Sisoridae, including one extraordinarily large-sized Bagarius yarrelli and two average-sized Glyptothorax macromaculatus and Oreoglanis setiger, were comparatively studied using RNA-Seq. Approximately 17,000 protein-coding genes were annotated for each of the three fishes, and 9509 genes were identified as high-confidence orthologous gene pairs. Comparative expressions uncovered a similar functional cluster about ribosome biogenesis was enriched in different tissues of the upregulated genes of Bagarius yarrelli.