Title: Understanding the mechanism of high temperature stress tolerance in fishes

Abstract

Temperature plays an important role in gross physiology of organisms and increase or decrease in environmental temperature beyond an optimal limit disturbs cellular homeostasis. The impact of high temperature is more severe in poikilothermic animals like fish and leads to retardation in growth, reproduction, causes even death, affecting the overall productivity. High temperature has become the major environmental concern in the climate change regime as according to a report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 20% of the species assessed so far are at the risk of extinction if the global temperature rises above 1.5-2°C. To safeguard life forms from the vagaries of high temperature stress in the climate change regime, it is necessary to understand the molecular mechanism of thermotolerance and devise mitigation action plans. This has been evidenced in recent times in form of mass mortalities of fishes and other aquatic animal during peak summer. Thus, we used a number of omics platforms such as proteomics, transcriptomics, lipidomics to understand the response of heat stressed fishes. The information generated from the studies could be helpful in devising mitigation plans to safeguard the aquaculture industry in the realm of global climate change.