Yina Shao

1 Introduction The Manila clam (Ruditapes philippinarum) is an economically important marine bivalve species in aquaculture, which has a widespread natural distribution in coastal areas from Europe to Asia. As a mollusc living in the intertidal zone, the Manila clam must deal with hard dynamic environments and environmental changes caused by physical elements such as PH, salinity, temperature, osmotic pressure, and air exposure (Zhang et al., 2015).

Xuemin Wang1, Yixin Wang1, Yanlin Wang1, Kenneth B. Storey2 and Muyan Chen1* 1The Key Laboratory of Mariculture, Ministry of Education, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, China 2Institute of Biochemistry, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada Background: In the past few decades, heat waves and seasonal variation linked with global warming are causing frequent fluctuations of water temperature in aquatic environments, resulting in further challenges for marine organisms.

In marine environments, organisms are confronted with numerous microbial challenges, although the differential regulation of xenophagy in response to different pathogenic bacterial species remains relatively unknown. Here, we addressed this issue using Apostichopus japonicus as a model. We identified 39 conserved autophagy-related genes by genome-wide screening, which provided a molecular basis for autophagy regulation in sea cucumbers.