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Genome-Wide Identification and Characterization of MITF Genes in Ruditapes philippinarum and Their Involvement in the Immune Response to Vibrio anguillarum Infection

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Abstract

Studies have shown that the shellfish have innate immune system, which is a very important immune form of shellfish, and they rely on the innate immune system to resist diseases. As a transcription factor, Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) plays a regulatory role in immune response and the shell color is also an important index for the breeding of excellent varieties of R. philippinarum. The research on immune response mechanism of RPMITFs can provide important reference data for the breeding of excellent clam varieties. In the genome of R. philippinarum, the RPMITF genes family of shell color-related gene family was selected as the target gene of this experiment. There are 12 RpMITF genes named RpMITF1, RpMITF2, RpMITF3, RpMITF4, RpMITF5, RpMITF6, RpMITF7, RpMITF8, RpMITF9, RpMITF10, RpMITF11, and RpMITF12. The open reading frame length is 639, 1233, 996, 1239, 675, 624, 816, 1365, 612, 1614, 1122, and 486 bp, encoding 212, 410, 331, 412, 224, 207, 271, 454, 203, 537, 373, and 161 aa, respectively. The predicted molecular weight range of amino acids is 18.85–62.61 kda, and the isoelectric point range is 5.26–9.44. Real-time quantitative PCR was used to detect the gene expression of RpMITF gene family in hepatopancreas tissues of two populations of Manila clam at 6 time points (0, 3, 6, 12, 24, and 48 h) after Vibrio anguillarum stress. The results show that RpMITF gene family was significantly expressed in hepatopancreas of two clam populations after V. anguillarum stress (P < 0.05).

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Acknowledgements

We thank our labmates for their help in the sample collection.

Funding

This work was supported by the Postgraduate Education Reform Project of Liaoning Province (LNYJG2022291), the Scientific Research project of Liaoning Education Department (QL201703), the Scientific Research Funding from Liaoning Provincial Department of Education (LJKZ0701), and the Dalian Science and Technology Innovation Fund Project (2022JJ12SN054).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Fisheries and Life Science, Dalian Ocean University, Dalian, 116023, China

    Jie Liu, Hongtao Nie, Zhongming Huo & Xiwu Yan

  2. Engineering Research Center of Shellfish Culture and Breeding in Liaoning Province, Dalian Ocean University, Dalian, 116023, China

    Jie Liu, Hongtao Nie, Zhongming Huo & Xiwu Yan

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  1. Jie Liu
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Contributions

HN and XY conceived the experimental design, under which tissue samples featured herein were collected. ZH and XY contributed to the experimental samples. JL carried out the laboratory bench work, analyzed the data, and wrote the manuscript. HN and JL contributed substantially to revised drafts of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hongtao Nie or Zhongming Huo.

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Liu, J., Nie, H., Huo, Z. et al. Genome-Wide Identification and Characterization of MITF Genes in Ruditapes philippinarum and Their Involvement in the Immune Response to Vibrio anguillarum Infection. Biochem Genet 61, 2514–2530 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10528-023-10365-1

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