These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed


  • Title: Molecular characterization and expression of a novel big defensin (Sb-BDef1) from ark shell, Scapharca broughtonii.
    Author: Li M, Zhu L, Zhou CY, Sun S, Fan YJ, Zhuang ZM.
    Journal: Fish Shellfish Immunol; 2012 Nov; 33(5):1167-73. PubMed ID: 23000749.
    Abstract:
    Big defensins, endogenous cysteine-rich antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) with antimicrobial activity and immunomodulatory property, play crucial roles in host defense against various microbial pathogens. A novel big defensin (Sb-BDef1) of ark shell Scapharca broughtonii was identified by expressed sequence tag (EST) and RACE techniques. The Sb-BDef1 cDNA contained an open reading frame (ORF) of 336-bp encoding a polypeptide of 111 amino acids with a putative signal peptide of 21 amino acid residues, followed by a putative propeptide of 11 residues and a putative mature peptide of 79 residues. The mature peptide shared the common features of big defensins, including a high hydrophobic residues region (59%) in the N-terminus, a defensin domain in the C-terminus, which perfectly corresponds to the six conserved disulfide-bonded cysteine residues involved in the formation of the internal disulfide bridges (C1-C5, C2-C4 and C3-C6) in all big defensins from mollusk, horseshoe crab and amphioxus. Quantitative real-time PCR analysis revealed that the expression of Sb-BDef1 transcript was detected in all the tissues examined from normal ark shells, and the temporal expression of Sb-BDef1 mRNA was remarkably up-regulated at 8, 16 h in hemocytes, and at 16, 24 h in hepatopancreas after Vibrio anguillarum-challenge, respectively. These results suggested that Sb-BDef1 was a constitutive and inducible acute-phase protein and should be involved in immune response of Gram-negative microbial infection in ark shell S. broughtonii.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]