Passage through the sclerotial stage does not impose persistent transcriptional reprogramming in Physarum

Sclerotia are dormant structures formed from plasmodia under dehydration and metabolic arrest, but the extent to which passage through the sclerotial stage leaves lasting changes in transcriptional states remains unclear. Here, we compared plasmodial transcriptomes of Physarum polycephalum and P. rigidum before and after sclerotium formation and reactivation. No differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were detected in P. rigidum, whereas 519 DEGs were identified in P. polycephalum. In both species, the variation observed among pre-sclerotium replicates (294 and 1497 DEGs, respectively) exceeded the changes detected between pre- and post-sclerotial states. These results indicate that passage through the sclerotial stage does not impose large-scale or persistent changes on global transcriptional profiles under the conditions tested.