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Constitutive expression and alternative splicing of the exons encoding SCRs in Sp152, the sea urchin homologue of complement factor B. Implications on the evolution of the Bf/C2 gene family

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Abstract

The purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, possesses a non-adaptive immune system including elements homologous to C3 and factor B (Bf) of the vertebrate complement system. SpBf is composed of motifs typical of the Bf/C2 protein family. Expression of Sp152 (encodes SpBf) was identified in the phagocyte type of coelomocyte in addition to gut, pharynx and esophagus, which may have been due to the presence of these coelomocytes in and on all tissues of the animal. Sp152 expression in coelomocytes was constitutive and non-inducible based on comparisons between pre- and post-injection with lipopolysaccharide or sterile seawater. The pattern of five short consensus repeats (SCRs) in SpBf has been considered ancestral compared to other deuterostome Bf/C2 proteins that contain either three or four SCRs. Three alternatively spliced messages were identified for Sp152 and designated Sp152Δ1, Sp152Δ4, and Sp152Δ1+Δ4, based on which of the five SCRs were deleted. Sp152Δ4 had an in-frame deletion of SCR4, which would encode a putative SpBfΔ4 protein with four SCRs rather than five. On the other hand, both Sp152Δ1 and Sp152Δ1+Δ4 had a frame-shift that introduced a stop codon six amino acids downstream of the splice site for SCR1, and would encode putative proteins composed only of the leader. Comparisons between the full-length SpBf and its several splice variants with other Bf/C2 proteins suggested that the early evolution of this gene family may have involved a combination of gene duplications and deletions of exons encoding SCRs.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Drs Oriol Sunyer and Sylvia Smith for helpful discussions. We are appreciative of assistance from Dr Sham Nair for BAC DNA isolation. This research was supported by funding from the National Science Foundation (MCB-9603086 and MCB-0077070) to L.C.S.

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  1. Lori A. Clow

    Present address: United States Patent and Trademark Office, 400 Dulaney Street, Alexandria, VA 22313, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, The George Washington University, Lisner Hall 340, 2023 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA

    David P. Terwilliger & L. Courtney Smith

  2. Graduate Program in Genetics, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, The George Washington University, Lisner Hall 340, 2023 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA

    Lori A. Clow & L. Courtney Smith

  3. Department of Biochemistry, Medical University of South Carolina, Hollings Marine Lab, 331 Ft Johnson Road, Charleston, SC 29412, USA

    Paul S. Gross

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  1. David P. Terwilliger
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Terwilliger, D.P., Clow, L.A., Gross, P.S. et al. Constitutive expression and alternative splicing of the exons encoding SCRs in Sp152, the sea urchin homologue of complement factor B. Implications on the evolution of the Bf/C2 gene family. Immunogenetics 56, 531–543 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-004-0711-0

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