show Abstracthide AbstractRNA was isolated from 12 tissues of 4 Carcinus maenas individuals. For every tissue the RNA from each individual was pooled. The RNA was sequenced on an Illumina HiSeq 2500 sequencing machine (Exeter sequencing service: http://ess-wiki.exeter.ac.uk/ess/Exeter_Sequencing_Service). After quality control the RNA was used to produce a de novo assembled transcriptome. The transcriptome was annotated through sequence similarity searches to the NCBI databases. The immune pathways were characterized in detail to provide a basis for further studies.