KRAB family is involved in network shifts in response to osmotic stress in camels

A feature of the camel is its tolerance to osmotic stress. However, few studies of osmotic stress in vivo or comparative analyses between different tissues of the camel have been performed. Here, we report the roles of Krüppel-associated box domain containing zinc-finger repressor proteins (KRAB-ZFPs) in transcriptional networks under osmotic stress in camels by analyzing transcriptomes of four different tissues under various osmotic conditions. We found that 273 of 278 KRAB-ZFPs were expressed in our data set, being involved in all of the 65 identified networks and exhibiting their extensive functional diversity. We also found that 110 KRAB-ZFPs were hub genes involved in more than half of the networks. We demonstrated that the osmotic stress response is involved in network shifts and that KRAB-ZFPs mediate this process. Finally, we presented the diverse mechanisms of osmotic stress responses in different tissues. These results revealed the genetic architecture of systematic physiological response in vivo to osmotic stress in camels. Our work will lead to new directions for studying the mechanism of osmotic stress response in anti-arid mammals.