Cloning of penaeidin gene promoter in tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon).

Penaeidins belong to a family of antimicrobial peptides that are expressed in the hemocytes of penaeid shrimps. Using an extender PCR method and a nested PCR, we cloned two types of genomic fragment flanking the 5' end of penaeidin gene in tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon): Type536 and Type411 sequences. Both fragments contained TATA box, GATA, dorsal and AP-1 motifs and were ligated to an expression vector with a luciferase reporter gene.

Cloning and expression analysis of heat shock cognate 70 gene promoter in tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon).

Heat shock cognate 70 (HSC70) functions as a molecular chaperon and plays an important role in protein folding. HSC70 cDNA of tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) was cloned and characterized in our previous study. After shrimps were treated with the 1-hr heat shock, the HSC70 mRNA level in hemocytes increased (approximately 8 fold) using real-time quantitative PCR.

Cloning and characterization of a shrimp clip domain serine protease homolog (c-SPH) as a cell adhesion molecule.

Clip domain serine protease homologs (c-SPHs) are involved in various innate immune functions in arthropods such as antimicrobial activity, cell adhesion, pattern recognition, opsonization, and regulation of the prophenoloxidase system. In the present study, we cloned a c-SPH cDNA from tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) hemocytes. It is 1337 bp in length with a coding region of 1068 bp consisting a protein of 355 amino acid residues.