Large yellow croakers (body weight at 90-100 g) were purchased from the mariculture farm in Ningde, Fuzhou, China. The fish were maintained at 25 °C in aerated water tanks (dissolved oxygen concentration: 7.8±0.5 mg per liter) with a flow through seawater supply. After 7 days of acclimation, these fish were used for the following experiments. Hypoxic time-course experiments were conducted at 25 °C using published method, by bubbling nitrogen gas into an aquarium. The desired pO2 was controlled by using dissolved oxygen meter. At the onset of the time course, the oxygen content of the tank was lowered from an aerated pO2 of 100% (7.8 mg per liter) down to 20% (1.6±0.2 mg per liter) over a 30-min period. At the 0-, 6-, 24-, and 48-h time points, fish were sampled and sequenced.