Is Required for Molting and Ovulation of the Oriental River Prawn .

Molting and ovulation are the basic processes responsible for the growth and reproduction of ; however, the molecular mechanisms of molting and ovulation in are poorly understood. The present study aimed to use as the starting point to study the molting and ovulation phenomena in at the molecular level. The full-length cDNA sequence was 2,198 base pairs (bp) in length with an open reading frame of 1,899 bp encoding 632 amino acids. Quantitative real-time PCR analysis showed that was highly expressed in the ovary at the cleavage stage and on the fifth day after hatching. administration of 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) showed that 20E effectively inhibited the expression of the gene, and the silencing of the gene reduced the content of 20E in the ovary. hybridization (ISH) analysis revealed the localization of in the ovary. Silencing of by RNA interference (RNAi) resulted in significant inhibition of the expression of the vitellogenin (), , and genes, thus confirming that had a mutual regulatory relationship with , , and . After RNAi, the molting frequency and ovulation number of decreased significantly, which demonstrated that played a pivotal role in the process of molting and ovulation.