The present study was performed to understand the effects of petroleum hydrocarbons on early life stages of development of marine fish species. The study specifically focuses on determining the genotoxic effects on sobaity sea bream (Sparidentex hasta) fish larvae exposed to Kuwait crude oil (KCO). Newly hatched sobaity sea bream larvae were exposed to water-accommodated fractions (WAF) of KCO. The total RNA was isolated at different time intervals from control and WAF treated larvae using Trizol reagent. Paired-end based RNA sequencing was performed. Differential expression analysis was performed to study the changes in gene expression in control and WAF exposed sobaity sea bream larvae at 3, 6, 24, 48, 72 or 96 h time points.