Abstract
The gustavus gene is required for localizing pole plasm and specifying germ cells. Research on gustavus gene expression will advance our understanding of the biological function of gustavus in animals. A cDNA encoding gustavus protein was identified and termed MnGus in the oriental river prawn Macrobrachium nipponense. Bioinformatic analyses showed that this gene encoded a protein of 262 amino acids and the protein belongs to the Spsb1 family. Real-time quantitative PCR analyses revealed that the expression level of MnGus in prawn embryos was slightly higher at the cleavage stage than at the blastula stage, and reached the maximum level during the zoea stage of embryos. The minimum level of MnGus expression occurred during the perinucleolus stage in the ovary, while the maximum was at the oil globule stage, and then the level of MnGus expression gradually decreased with the advancement of ovarian development. The expression level of MnGus in muscle was much higher than that in other tissues in mature prawn. The gustavus cDNA sequence was firstly cloned from the oriental river prawn and the pattern of gene expression was described during oocyte maturation, embryonic development, and in other tissues. The differential expression patterns of MnGus in the embryo, ovary and other somatic tissues suggest that the gustavus gene performs multiple physiological functions in the oriental river prawn.
Highlights
It is well known that embryonic development originates from the formation of gametes that are responsible for transmitting genetic information from one generation to the
59- and 39-RACE Amplification of MnGus Gene Based on the homology to Drosophila and other organisms, we identified the GUS-related genes in the cDNA library constructed with the previtellogenesis ovary tissues
The tree showed that MnGus was lined with the Spsb1 group of Arthropoda such as C. clemensi and L. salmonis, but separated from its homologues of Vertebrata Spsb1 and Spsb4
Summary
It is well known that embryonic development originates from the formation of gametes that are responsible for transmitting genetic information from one generation to the next. The formation of germ cell precursors depends on a specialized cytoplasm known as germ plasm, which contains RNAs and proteins that are required for embryonic patterning and germ cell formation [2,3,4,5]. The VASA gene has been identified in the fly Drosophila and it encodes a DEAD (Asp-Glu-Ala-Asp) box family protein [7]. This gene is a putative RNA helicase and is present both in polar granules at the posterior end of the oocyte and in the nuage structure of germ cells [8,9]
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