Genome-Wide Identification and Characterization of MITF Genes in Ruditapes philippinarum and Their Involvement in the Immune Response to Vibrio anguillarum Infection.

Abstract

Studies have shown that the shellfish have innate immune system, which is a very important immune form of shellfish, and they rely on the innate immune system to resist diseases. As a transcription factor, Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) plays a regulatory role in immune response and the shell color is also an important index for the breeding of excellent varieties of R. philippinarum. The research on immune response mechanism of RPMITFs can provide important reference data for the breeding of excellent clam varieties. In the genome of R. philippinarum, the RPMITF genes family of shell color-related gene family was selected as the target gene of this experiment. There are 12 RpMITF genes named RpMITF1, RpMITF2, RpMITF3, RpMITF4, RpMITF5, RpMITF6, RpMITF7, RpMITF8, RpMITF9, RpMITF10, RpMITF11, and RpMITF12. The open reading frame length is 639, 1233, 996, 1239, 675, 624, 816, 1365, 612, 1614, 1122, and 486bp, encoding 212, 410, 331, 412, 224, 207, 271, 454, 203, 537, 373, and 161 aa, respectively. The predicted molecular weight range of amino acids is 18.85-62.61 kda, and the isoelectric point range is 5.26-9.44. Real-time quantitative PCR was used to detect the gene expression of RpMITF gene family in hepatopancreas tissues of two populations of Manilaclam at 6 time points (0, 3, 6, 12, 24, and 48h) after Vibrio anguillarum stress. The results show that RpMITF gene family was significantly expressed in hepatopancreas of two clam populations after V. anguillarum stress (P < 0.05).