Identification of two genes potentially related to myogenesis and muscle growth in Fenneropenaeus chinensis: Activin receptor II and Follistatin-like protein.

Yunjun Yan, Jie Kong, Xia Lu, Xianhong Meng, Sheng Luan, Ping Dai, Baolong Chen, Baoxiang Cao, Kun Luo

Gene 2021 Feb 20

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Activin receptor (ActR) and follistatin-like (FSTL) genes, which are involved in the Myostatin (Mstn) related TGF-β/Smad signaling pathway, play important roles in regulating the muscle generation, development and growth of muscle in vertebrate. Our previous studies have confirmed that Mstn negatively regulates muscle development and growth in Fenneropenaeus chinensis as that in vertebrate. However, the roles of ActR and FSTL in muscle development and growth in invertebrate remains unclear. In the present study, type II ActR(FcActRII) and FSTL (FcFSTL) genes from F. chinensis were cloned and characterized, and their functions on muscle development and growth were investigated. The full-length cDNAs of FcActRII and FcFSTL were 2366 bp that encoded 572 amino acids and 2474 bp that encoded 717 amino acids, respectively. Sequence analysis revealed that the overall protein sequences of the two genes shared 97% and 96% identities with Penaeus vannamei and 50%-59% and 35%-36% identities with vertebrates, respectively. In the early development stages, muscles firstly appeared in nauplius stage and developed gradually until post larval, and the mRNA expressions of FcActRII increased from gastrula to zoea stage and then decreased from zoea stage to post larval stage while that of FcFSTL was lowest in gastrula stage and increased rapidly in nauplius stage and then expressed stably from nauplius stage to post-larval stage. In the adult shrimp, the two genes were widely distributed in the examined tissues. The FcActRII expression in muscle of L group was significantly lower than that of S group, but the FcFSTL expression showed an opposite result. After down-regulating the expression of FcMstn by RNAi, FcActRII expression was significantly down-regulated while that of FcFSTL was up-regulated. The present study suggested that FcActRII and FcFSTL, regulated by FcMstn, might be involved in myogenesis and muscle growth. Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Citation

Yunjun Yan, Jie Kong, Xia Lu, Xianhong Meng, Sheng Luan, Ping Dai, Baolong Chen, Baoxiang Cao, Kun Luo. Identification of two genes potentially related to myogenesis and muscle growth in Fenneropenaeus chinensis: Activin receptor II and Follistatin-like protein. Gene. 2021 Feb 20;770:145346