Two C-type lectins from shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei that might be involved in immune response against bacteria and virus

  • Xiumei Wei
  • , Xiangquan Liu
  • , Jianmin Yang*
  • , Jinghui Fang
  • , Hongjin Qiao
  • , Ying Zhang
  • , Jialong Yang*
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

70 Scopus citations

Abstract

C-type lectins play crucial roles in innate immunity to recognize and eliminate pathogens efficiently. In the present study, two C-type lectins from shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei (designated as LvLectin-1 and LvLectin-2) were identified, and their expression patterns, both in tissues and toward pathogen stimulation, were then characterized. The full-length cDNA of LvLectin-1 and LvLectin-2 was 567 and 625bp, containing an open reading frame (ORF) of 471 and 489bp, respectively, and deduced amino acid sequences showed high similarity to other members of C-type lectin superfamily. Both two C-type lectins encoded a single carbohydrate-recognition domain (CRD). The motif of Ca2+ binding site 2 in CRD, which determined carbohydrate-binding specificity, was QPN (Gln122-Pro123-Asn124) in LvLectin-1, but QPD (Gln128-Pro129-Asp130) in LvLectin-2. Two C-type lectins exhibited similar tissue expression pattern, for their mRNA were both constitutively expressed in all tested tissues, including hepatopancreas, muscle, gill, hemocytes, gonad and heart, furthermore they were both mostly expressed in hepatopancreas, though the expression level of LvLectin-2 was much higher than LvLectin-1. The expression level of two C-type lectins mRNA in hemocytes varied greatly after the challenge of Listonella anguillarum or WSSV. After L. anguillarum challenge, the expression of both C-type lectins were significantly (P<0.01) up-regulated compared with blank group, and LvLectin-1 exhibited higher level than LvLectin-2; while after the stimulation of WSSV, the expression of LvLectin-2 was significantly up-regulated at 6h (P<0.01) and 12h (P<0.05), but the expression level of LvLectin-1 down-regulated significantly (P<0.01) to 0.4-fold at 6 and 12h post-stimulation. The results indicated that the two C-type lectins might be involved in immune response toward pathogen infection, and they might perform different recognition specificity toward bacteria or virus.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)132-140
Number of pages9
JournalFish and Shellfish Immunology
Volume32
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2012
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • C-type lectin
  • Innate immunity
  • Litopenaeus vannamei
  • Pathogen recognition
  • Quantitative real-time PCR

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