Cloning and expression analysis of a HSP70 gene from Pacific abalone (Haliotis discus hannai)

Heat shock protein 70 (HSP70), the primary member of HSPs that are responsive of thermal stress, is found in all multicellular organisms and functions mostly as molecular chaperon. The inducible HSP70 cDNA cloned from Pacific abalone (Haliotis discus hannai) using rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE), was highly homologous to other HSP70 genes. The full-length cDNA of the Pacific abalone HSP70 was 2631 bp, consisting of a 5'-terminal untranslated region (UTR) of 90 bp, a 3'-terminal UTR of 573 by with a canonical polyadenylation signal sequence AATAAA and a poly (A) tail, and an open reading frame of 1968 bp. The HSP70 cDNA encoded a polypeptide of 655 amino acids with an ATPase domain of 382 amino acids, the substrate peptide binding domain of 161 amino acids and a C-terminus domain of 112 amino acids. The temporal expression of HSP70 was measured by semi-quantitative RT-PCR after heat shock and bacterial challenge. Challenge of Pacific abalone with heat shock or the pathogenic bacteria Vibrio anguillarum resulted in a dramatic increase in the expression of HSP70 mRNA level in muscle, followed by a recovery to normal level after 96 h. Unlike the muscle, the levels of HSP70 expression in gills reached the top at 12 h and maintained a relatively high level compared with the control after thermal and bacterial challenge. The upregulated mRNA expression of HSP70 in the abalone following heat shock and infection response indicates that the HSP70 gene is inducible and involved in immune response. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Molecular cloning, expression and biochemical property analysis of AtKP1, a kinesin gene from Arabidopsis thaliana

Kinesins are common in a variety of eukaryotic cells with diverse functions. A cDNA encoding a member of the Kinesin-14B subfamily is obtained using X-RACE technology and named AtKP1 (for Arabidopsis kinesin protein 1). This cDNA has a maximum open reading frame of 3.3 kb encoding a polypeptide of 1087 aa. Protein domain analysis shows that AtKP1 contains the motor domain and the calponin homology domain in the central and amino-terminal regions, respectively. The carboxyl-terminal region with 202 aa residues is diverse from other known kinesins. Northern blot analysis shows that AtKP1 is widely expressed at a higher level in seedlings than in mature plants. 2808 bp of the AtKP1 promoter region is cloned and fused to GUS. GUS expression driven by the AtKP1 promoter region shows that AtKP1 is mainly expressed in vasculature of young organs and young leaf trichomes, indicating that AtKP1 may participate in the differentiation or development of Arabidopsis thaliana vascular bundles and trichomes. A truncated AtKP1 protein containing the putative motor domain is expressed in E. coli and affinity-purified. In vitro characterizations indicate that the polypeptide has nucleotide-dependent microtubule-binding ability and microtubule-stimulated ATPase activity.

微生物——铊相互作用的生物地球化学研究——以真菌（Fungus）为例

铊是一种有毒有害的重金属元素，已经引起了广泛的关注。本论文通过对黔西南铊矿区土壤和沉积物样品的菌株分离、铊高耐受性菌株的筛选、胞外吸附、富集、亚细胞水平区系分布、絮凝实验及ITS序列等实验研究分析，并结合铊的地球化学相关研究，较系统地阐述了真菌--铊的生物地球化学过程机理，得出以下结论： 1、与环境背景区相比，黔西南滥木厂铊矿区内的河流、土壤中铊的已有不同程度的积累，直接导致了当地微生物生物量在很大程度上的降低，微生物生物量与铊含量间有显著的负相关关系。研究区内的沉积物、土壤中的微生物区系结构和数量发生了明显变化，细菌、真菌及放线菌数量均出现显著降低，而且三大微生物对重金属污染的敏感性大小也不一样，即放线菌>细菌>真菌。从土壤样品中分离到的主要菌群仍为常见种属，如青霉属（Penicillium）、木霉属（Trichoderma）、拟青霉（Paecilomyces）等。 2、经过初筛菌株的铊耐受性实验，在1000 mg/L水平筛选得到九株高耐受性菌株。吸附实验表明：微生物菌株对铊的吸附效率在4.63～16.89%，且随着环境中铊浓度的上升而降低，这可能是因为铊浓度的升高加大了对微生物生长的抑制作用，所形成的菌丝体（或菌丝球）减少，表面积也相应减少，从而导致了吸附效率的下降。各种常量元素和铊的关系呈显著相关性，钙、钾和钠等常量元素也是微生物赖以维持生存的因子，可能由于微生物细胞对钙、钾的吸附方式与对铊的吸附方式类似。因此，随着铊处理浓度的上升，钙和钾的吸附量也随之减少，而钠则呈现相反的趋势。 3、富集实验表明，九株菌株对铊的富集量随着铊处理浓度上升而降低，其影响趋势与对生物量的影响趋势基本一致，最高可达到7189 mg/kg，最大富集系数为7.2。九株菌株对常量元素的富集与对铊的富集并无明显的相关性，但在考察铊处理浓度对常量元素的富集影响时发现，铊处理浓度的上升与对钙的富集量表现出较强的正相关；而对钾、钠、镁的富集影响并不明显。 4、亚细胞水平上的铊分布研究表明，铊的富集优先顺序为：细胞质>细胞壁>细胞器。亚细胞水平的区隔化作用是微生物对铊的主要耐受机制，细胞质是赋存铊的主要场所（53.83～79.45 %）。结合各亚细胞组分中常量元素与铊之间的相关性，并联系前人的研究，Tl+主要是通过细胞壁的Na+ -K+ ATPase和K+ -电位门通道进入细胞内的从而影响细胞的正常代谢的，而Ca2+的活化更有助于这一过程。 5、絮凝实验表明，培养三天后的发酵液对矿区废水中铊的去除率最高可达到70.49 %，最佳影响因子组合为：pH=8，温度为16℃，搅拌时间为4分钟。菌株的絮凝活性最高可达到57.32%，最佳影响因子组合为：pH=8，温度为14℃，搅拌时间为4分钟。 6、通过对九株铊高耐受性菌株的ITS序列分析及其在Gene Bank中的BLAST比对结果表明，五株菌株同属于木霉属（Trichoderma），两株菌株同属于青霉属（Penicillium）。这表明这两类真菌对铊的适应性较强，为以后寻找铊高耐受性菌株及其资源化利用提供了理论基础。