Abstract
Fibroblast growth factor 18 (FGF18) plays an important functional role in skeletal growth and development. The FGF18 gene was characterized in pearl oyster Pinctada fucata martensii (PmFGF18) with the full-length sequence containing an open reading frame of 714 bp encoding 237 amino acids. The domain analysis of PmFGF18 showed a distinctive FGF domain, with a high similarity to FGF18 protein sequences from Crassostrea gigas (43.35%) and C. virginica (37.43%). PmFGF18 expression was revealed in all analyzed tissues with a significantly higher expression level in the fast-growing group than the slow-growing group. The analysis of PmFGF18 polymorphism demonstrated 33 SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) in the CDS and promoter region of PmFGF18 sequence. Association analysis revealed 19 SNPs (2 SNPs from CDS and 17 SNPs from the promoter region) associating significantly with growth traits. Among the associated SNPs, one SNP g.50918198 A > C was verified in the other breeding line. Therefore, PmFGF18 can be utilized as a candidate gene for growth, and its related SNPs could be used in selective breeding of P. f. martensii for the improvement of growth traits.
Highlights
The pearl oyster Pinctada fucata martensii, cultured for nucleated marine pearls, is naturally found in Japan, South China, and Australia [1]
The phylogenetic tree analysis showed that these Fibroblast growth factor 18 (FGF18) proteins were divided into invertebrate and vertebrate branches which conformed to the traditional taxonomy (Figure S2)
PmFGF18 may exhibit a functional role in the growth of pearl oysters
Summary
The pearl oyster Pinctada fucata martensii, cultured for nucleated marine pearls, is naturally found in Japan, South China, and Australia [1]. The size of marine pearls is affected by the growth of pearl oysters [2,3]. As quantitative traits regulated by multiple genes, have been reported in the construction of genetic linkage maps and SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) identification of associated candidate genes [6,7,8,9,10]. Multiple genetic linkage maps have been researched for the genetic mechanism of the growth traits of bivalves, including C. gigas, Hyriopsis cumingii, Chlamys farreri, and P. f. In order to explore the genetic mechanism of growth traits, the polymorphism of growth-associated genes, including the amylase gene, the insulin-related peptide gene from C. gigas [14,15,16], and myostatin genes from C. farreri [17], Argopecten irradians [18] and C. nobilis [19] have been widely researched
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