Fan X, Wu B, Nagle G T, Painter S D
Marine Biomedical Institute and Department of Anatomy and Neurosciences, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston 77555-1043, USA.
Brain Res Mol Brain Res. 1997 Aug;48(1):167-70. doi: 10.1016/s0169-328x(97)00154-x.
Recently deposited egg cordons are a source of water-borne pheromones that attract the marine mollusk Aplysia into breeding aggregations and coordinate male and female reproductive behavior within the aggregation. A potential pheromonal attractant has been isolated from egg cordon eluates and the peptide partially characterized [S.D. Painter, B. Clough, X. Fan, G.T. Nagle, Soc. Neurosci. Abstr., Vol. 22 (1996) 837]. Using this information, we have cloned an Aplysia albumen gland cDNA that encodes a precursor protein containing a single copy of the full-length peptide, and demonstrated that there are abundant levels of pheromone mRNA transcripts (0.8 and 2.5 kb) in the albumen gland. This is consistent with the reported function of the gland (i.e. packaging the eggs into a cordon for deposition), with behavioral studies showing that the albumen gland is a potential source of attractants, and more recent biochemical studies in which the full-length peptide has been isolated from the albumen gland. This is the first candidate peptide pheromone in mollusks and the first in invertebrates. The pheromonal regulatory system in Aplysia may provide a model system for examining the structural characteristics of peptide pheromones.
最近产下的卵带是水溶性信息素的来源，这些信息素会吸引海生软体动物海兔聚集进行繁殖，并协调聚集群体内雌雄个体的生殖行为。一种潜在的信息素引诱剂已从卵带洗脱液中分离出来，并且该肽已得到部分鉴定[S.D. 佩因特、B. 克拉夫、X. 范、G.T. 纳格尔，《神经科学学会摘要》，第22卷（1996年）837页]。利用这些信息，我们克隆了一个海兔蛋白腺cDNA，它编码一种前体蛋白，该前体蛋白包含该全长肽的单拷贝，并证明在蛋白腺中存在大量的信息素mRNA转录本（0.8和2.5 kb）。这与该腺体已报道的功能（即将卵包装成卵带以便产下）相一致，行为学研究表明蛋白腺是引诱剂的潜在来源，以及最近的生化研究中已从蛋白腺中分离出全长肽。这是软体动物中首个候选肽类信息素，也是无脊椎动物中的首个。海兔的信息素调节系统可能为研究肽类信息素的结构特征提供一个模型系统。
