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Molecular Characterization and Gene Expression Profiling ... - CUSAT

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Chapter 3<br />

negative bacteria. In shrimp, cDNA clones homologous to the horseshoe crab<br />

ALFs were initially identified in haemocytes of P. monodon <strong>and</strong> L. setiferus by<br />

expressed sequence tag (EST) analysis (Gross et al., 2001; Supungul et al.,<br />

2004). More recently, a similar approach has been implemented to identify<br />

ALF homologues in other shrimp species including the Chinese shrimp F.<br />

chinensis (Liu et al., 2005) <strong>and</strong> the kuruma shrimp M. japonicus (Nagoshi et<br />

al., 2006). Antimicrobial assays using recombinant P. monodon ALF have<br />

shown strong activity against multiple gram-positive <strong>and</strong> gram-negative<br />

bacteria <strong>and</strong> filamentous fungi (Somboonwiwat et al., 2005). In the present<br />

study two isoforms of ALFs could be characterized. The complete coding<br />

sequence of the ALF-2 could also be obtained in the present study.<br />

In the present study two putative ALFs could be characterized from<br />

the haemocytes of the Indian white shrimp, F. indicus. ALF-1 was found to be<br />

a new isoform of ALF from F. indicus. However, only a partial sequence of<br />

ALF-1 could be characterized. Complete coding sequence of the ALF-2 could<br />

be characterized from the haemocytes of F. indicus. The ALF-2 sequence<br />

shared 98% similarity with another ALF recently reported from the same<br />

species. Results of BLAST, multiple alignments <strong>and</strong> phylogenetic study<br />

revealed both ALF-1 <strong>and</strong> ALF-2 to be closely related isoforms of the ALF<br />

family. ALFs characterized from F. indicus haemocytes were found to be<br />

more related to other ALFs of Fenneropenaeus sp. than to Litopenaeus,<br />

Farfantepenaeus or Penaeus sp. The molecular weight, pI <strong>and</strong> amino acid<br />

composition predicted out for ALF-2 were in agreement with the results of<br />

Beale et al. (2008) <strong>and</strong> Imjongjirak et al. (2007). Peptide model of the partial<br />

ALF-1 created using SWISS-MODEL server, was found to consist of both<br />

alpha-helical structure <strong>and</strong> β-sheets (Fig.3.3). Four β-sheets <strong>and</strong> one α-helix<br />

could be detected in the ALF-1 of F. indicus. As per Hoess et al. (1993) <strong>and</strong><br />

Beale et al. (2008), the ALF molecules should consist of a single domain with<br />

<strong>Molecular</strong> <strong>Characterization</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>Gene</strong> <strong>Expression</strong> <strong>Profiling</strong> of Antimicrobial Peptides in Penaeid Shrimps<br />

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