LAUSR

Abstract Similar to other marine bivalves, Pinctada maxima shows unsynchronized growth, but the underlying metabolic mechanisms have not been studied. In this study, gold-lipped pearl oyster P. maxima from cultured stocks were selected to produce progeny stock. At 180 days, the stock was sorted by size, and fast-growing individuals and slow-growing individuals were separately sampled. Then, a metabolomic approach based on gas chromatography–mass spectroscopy was applied to assess the metabolite changes between the fast-growing and slow-growing groups of P. maxima and to understand the mechanism of their unsynchronized growth. In the metabolomics assay, among the 896 peaks isolated, 111 metabolites were revealed a spectral similarity value of >700 by using mass spectrum matching, and 48 were considered as significantly different metabolites (SDMs; VIP > 1 and P