Molecular cloning and mRNA expression of M-phase phosphoprotein 6 gene in black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon).

It is widely accepted that protein phosphorylation is a major control event in regulating cell cycle. In the present study, a novel M-phase phosphoprotein 6 (MPP6) was identified from black tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon (designated as PmMPP6) by cDNA library and RACE approaches. The full-length cDNA of PmMPP6 was of 690 bp, including a 5'-terminal un-translated region (5'UTR) of 68 bp, a 3'UTR of 172 bp with a poly (A) tail, and an open reading frame (ORF) of 450 bp encoding a polypeptide of 149 amino acids with a predicted molecular weight of 17.01 kDa. Blastx and phylogenetic analysis together supported that PmMPP6 was a novel member of shrimp MPP6. The mRNA expression of PmMPP6 in thirteen tissues was examined by real-time PCR, and mRNA transcript of PmMPP6 was predominantly detectable in tissues of lymphoid and muscle, to a lesser degree in the tissues of gill, ovary and hepatopancreas, and mainly detected in haemocytes, heart and gonad. The temporal expression of PmMPP6 in different developmental stages of ovary was investigated by real-time PCR. During the six stages of ovary development, two peaks expression of PmMPP6 was detected in stage II with 3.78-fold increase and stage V with 3.48-fold increase compared to that in stage I. All these results indicated that PmMPP6 might be involved in regulating shrimp cell cycle and ovary development.