Identification and Characterization of Genes for the Allo A Lectins in Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle (Trypoxylus dichotomus [Allomyrina dichotoma]).

Mitsutoshi Tabata, Kazuo Umetsu, Takashi Kitano

Biochemical genetics 2022 Feb

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The Japanese rhinoceros beetle (Trypoxylus dichotomus [Allomyrina dichotoma]) produces the lectins allo A-I and allo A-II, which have strong N-acetyllactosamine (Galβ1-4GlcNAc)-binding activity. It has been suggested that the two lectins are formed from three subunits (α, β, and γ), with allo A-I comprising α and γ subunits and allo A-II comprising β and γ subunits. Here, we determined the cDNA sequences of these subunits using both conventional polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-cloning-sequencing and transcriptome-sequencing analyses. For the α and β subunits, one gene (locus) for each was predicted, whereas for the γ subunit, two types of cDNA sequences were obtained, which we named γ1 and γ2. These two types probably have distinct loci. Average nucleotide sequence identities among the subunits ranged from 87.6% (between α and γ1) to 92.6% (between γ1 and γ2), suggesting that they form a gene family. Although no homology was found between the sequences of allo A and other known lectin proteins in a protein database search, some unknown proteins containing the DUF3421 domain were identified. Those DUF3421 domain-encoding proteins are upregulated in the insect larval midgut. Thus, we infer that allo A genes also play an important role in larvae and that their lectin activity may have been obtained collaterally. © 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.

Citation

Mitsutoshi Tabata, Kazuo Umetsu, Takashi Kitano. Identification and Characterization of Genes for the Allo A Lectins in Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle (Trypoxylus dichotomus [Allomyrina dichotoma]). Biochemical genetics. 2022 Feb;60(1):94-105