Antibodies targeting the European lobster (Palinurus elephas) vitellogenin developed by mRNA isolation and in-silico-designed antigenic peptides.

Vitellogenin is an essential protein involved in ovary maturation in many animals. Detection of this protein correlated with reproductive capacity may be important if carried out on marine organisms such as the red spiny lobster Palinurus elephas, a crustacean that is an economically important crop from wild fish catches. Moreover, in recent years, vitellogenin has assumed an important role as a possible biomarker of marine environmental pollution, as its expression levels can be influenced by the presence of similar estrogen pollutants and can affect the reproductive sphere of marine organisms such as crustaceans. The P. elephas vitellogenin protein and its coding gene have never been isolated, so there is little information about its presence in this lobster. The aim of the present study was to develop a molecular strategy to create, for the first time, an antibody for the detection and quantization of vitellogenin in P. elephas.