Molecular cloning of the heat shock protein 20 gene from Paphia textile and its expression in response to heat shock

P. textile is an important aquaculture species in China and is mainly distributed in Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi Provinces. In this study, an HSP20 c DNA designated Pt HSP20 was cloned from P. textile. The full-length c DNA of Pt HSP20 is 1 090 bp long and contains a 5′ untranslated region(UTR) of 93 bp, a 3′ UTR of 475 bp, and an open reading frame(ORF) of 522 bp. The Pt HSP20 c DNA encodes 173 amino acid residues and has a molecular mass of 20.22 k Da and an isoelectric point of 6.2. Its predicted amino acid sequence shows that Pt HSP20 contains a typical α-crystallin domain(residues 77–171) and three polyadenylation signal-sequences at the C-terminus. According to an amino acid sequence alignment, Pt HSP20 shows moderate homology to other mollusk s HSPs. Pt HSP20 m RNA was present in all of the test tissues including the heart, digestive gland, adductor muscle, gonad, gill, and mantle, with the highest concentration found in the gonad. Under the stress of high temperature, the expression of Pt HSP20 m RNA was down-regulated in all of the tissues except the adductor muscle and gonad.