Chen Jing, Zhang Dao-Wei, Jin Xing, Xu Xian-Lin, Zeng Bo-Ping
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, College of Basic Medical Science, Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, China.
School of Biological and Agricultural Science and Technology, Zunyi Normal University, Zunyi, China.
Front Physiol. 2018 Oct 8;9:1411. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2018.01411. eCollection 2018.
Akirin is an essential nuclear protein involved in the regulation of NF-κB signaling pathway. In most invertebrates, Akirin regulates NF-κB-related Imd and Toll pathways, however, in , it only controls the Imd pathway, whereas its role in NF-κB signaling pathway in other insect species is unclear. In the present study, we used white-backed planthopper as a model to investigate the functional activity of Akirin in insects. The sequence of cDNA was extracted from transcriptome database of ; it contained a 585 bp open reading frame (ORF) encoding a putative protein of 194 amino acids. Akirin (SfAkirin) had a molecular weight of about 21.69 kDa and a theoretical pI of 8.66 and included a nuclear localization signal (NLS) of five amino acid residues at the N-terminal region. Evolutionary analysis showed that SfAkirin was evolutionary closer to Akirins of such relatively distant species as crustaceans than to those of some insect orders like Diptera and Hymenoptera. Tissue-specific expression analysis showed that the gene was expressed in all examined tissues, with the highest expression levels detected in the testis, followed by the ovary, whereas the lowest expression was found in the head. Real-time quantitative PCR analysis showed that mRNA was strongly induced in response to injection of heat-inactivated and , whereas silencing by RNA interference significantly reduced the expression of NF-κB dependent transcription factors and after and challenge, respectively. Our results suggest that SfAkirin may control the immune response of against bacterial infection via both Imd and Toll signaling pathways.
Akirin是一种参与核因子κB（NF-κB）信号通路调控的重要核蛋白。在大多数无脊椎动物中，Akirin调节与NF-κB相关的免疫缺陷（Imd）和Toll通路，然而，在[具体物种未提及]中，它仅控制Imd通路，而其在其他昆虫物种的NF-κB信号通路中的作用尚不清楚。在本研究中，我们以白背飞虱为模型来研究Akirin在昆虫中的功能活性。从[具体物种未提及]的转录组数据库中提取了Akirin的cDNA序列；它包含一个585 bp的开放阅读框（ORF），编码一个由194个氨基酸组成的假定蛋白。草地贪夜蛾Akirin（SfAkirin）的分子量约为21.69 kDa，理论pI为8.66，并且在N端区域包含一个由五个氨基酸残基组成的核定位信号（NLS）。进化分析表明，SfAkirin在进化上与甲壳类等相对较远的物种的Akirin比与双翅目和膜翅目等一些昆虫目的Akirin更接近。组织特异性表达分析表明，SfAkirin基因在所有检测的组织中均有表达，在睾丸中表达水平最高，其次是卵巢，而在头部表达最低。实时定量PCR分析表明，在注射热灭活的[具体物质未提及]和[具体物质未提及]后，SfAkirin mRNA被强烈诱导，而通过RNA干扰使SfAkirin沉默分别在[具体物质未提及]和[具体物质未提及]攻击后显著降低了NF-κB依赖性转录因子[具体转录因子未提及]和[具体转录因子未提及]的表达。我们的结果表明，SfAkirin可能通过Imd和Toll信号通路控制草地贪夜蛾对细菌感染的免疫反应。
