Molecular and Functional Diversity of Crustin-Like Genes in the Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei

Marine Drugs

Shihao Li¹  Xinjia Lv¹  Yang Yu¹  Fuhua Li¹  Xiaojun Zhang¹ 

[1] Key Laboratory of Experimental Marine Biology, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China;

关键词: crustin;    sequence diversity;    immunological function;    Litopenaeus vannamei;   

DOI  :  10.3390/md18070361

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Crustins are crustacean cationic cysteine-rich antimicrobial peptides that contain one or two whey acidic protein (WAP) domain(s) at the carboxyl terminus and mainly show antimicrobial and/or proteinase inhibitory activities. Here, we performed genome and transcriptome screening and identified 34 full-length crustin-like encoding genes in Litopenaeus vannamei. Multiple sequence analysis of the deduced mature peptides revealed that these putative crustins included 10 type Ia, two type Ib, one type Ic, 11 type IIa, three type IIb, four type III, one type IV, one type VI, and one type VII. These putative crustins were clustered into different groups. Phylogenetic analysis, considering their domain composition, showed that different types of crustin-like genes in crustaceans might be originated from the WAP core region, along with sequence insertion, duplication, deletion, and amino acid substitution. Tissue distribution analysis suggested that most crustin-like genes were mainly detected in immune-related tissues while several crustin-like genes exhibited tissue-specific expression patterns. Quantitative PCR analysis on 15 selected crustin-like genes showed that most of them were apparently upregulated after Vibrio parahaemolyticus or white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) infection. One type Ib crustin-like gene, mainly expressed in the ovary, showed the highest expression levels before the gastrula stage and was hardly detected after the limb bud stage, suggesting that it was a maternal immune effector. Collectively, the present data revealed the molecular and functional diversity of crustins and their potential evolutionary routes in crustaceans.

【 授权许可】

Unknown