Abstract
Methyl farnesoate (MF) is the crustacean homolog of the insect juvenile hormone and is believed to regulate physiological processes such as molting and reproduction in crustaceans. Farnesoic acid (FA) O-methyltransferase (FAMeT) is an important enzyme in conversion of FA to MF and may thus play key roles in regulation of growth in crustaceans. In this study, we cloned a full-length PcFAMeT cDNA sequence consisting of 1319 bp (Genbank: JQ315119) with an open reading frame (ORF) of 840 bp that encodes 280 amino acids from the shrimp, Penaeus chinensis. Comparison of the amino acid sequence revealed that PcFAMeT had an overall similarity of 81.07–96.07% with other penaeid shrimp FAMeT. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis showed that PcFAMeT transcript has a wide tissue distribution pattern in P. chinensis and the highest expression of the transcripts occurred in muscle tissue. Stage-specific expression profile revealed that the highest expression of FAMeT occurred at the intermolt stage which implied that the conversion of FA to MF may be involved in the onset of molting processes.
Published Version
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