Expression and characterisation of tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon penaeidin (mo-penaeidin) in various tissues, during early embryonic development and moulting stages.

A penaeidin family, mo-penaeidin was cloned from the haemocytes of tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon using genomic polymerase chain reaction (PCR) by gene specific primers. Analysis of nucleotide sequence revealed that this mo-penaeidin consists of 1348 bp containing one intron (680 bp) and two exons (210 and 458 bp). It has an open reading frame (ORF) of 222 p, which encodes a protein of 74 amino acids including a signal peptide of 19 amino acids. The calculated molecular mass of the mature protein (55 amino acids) is 6.059 kDa with an estimated pI of 9.3. The deduced amino acid sequence of mo-penaeidin has similarity to that of penaeidin from Fenneropenaeus chinensis (73%), Farfantepenaeus paulensis (66%), Litopenaeus schmitti (53-67%), L. stylirostris (50-67%), L. setiferus (50-62%), L. vannamei (44-66%), and Marsupenaeus japonicus (33%), respectively. Phylogenetic tree analysis indicated that penaeidin (including mo-penaeidin, penaeidin, and penaeidin 5, 2, 3k, 3c1) of P. monodon is distinct from penaeidin 1, penaeidin 2, penaeidin 3 and penaeidin 4 of other penaeid shrimps. The mo-penaeidin mRNA was detected in various tissues including ovary and mandibular organ. The mo-penaeidin mRNA was present in one cell to postlarva stage with higher level at nauplius I (9h post hatching) and higher expression during the intermoult stage indicating an early innate immunity and different immunity at moulting stage.