Morphological and molecular evidence supports the occurrence of a single species of Zebrias zebrinus along the coastal waters of China

The so-called zebra sole includes a group of small flatfishes characterized by transverse band pairs on the ocular side and distributed throughout shallow waters along the coast of the Indo-West Pacific Ocean. Sev-eral species of the zebra sole have been recorded from the coastal waters of China. Morphological analysis of 1 107 specimens of the zebra sole from 15 successive localities along the China’s coast demonstrated that no significant variations among these localities were found on the basis of meristic counts and morphometric characters. Phylogenetic analysis based onCOI gene sequences of 14 individuals and D-loop of 22 indi-viduals from eight localities showed that they were indistinguishable among these localities. Therefore, both morphological and molecular evidence supported the occurrence of a single species of the zebra sole along the China’s coast. The available name for this species isZebriaszebrinus （Temminck and Schlegel, 1846） in-stead ofZ.zebra （Bloch, 1787）.Zebrias fasciatus（Basilewsky, 1855） andSolea ommatura （Richardson, 1846） are considered here as two synonyms ofZ. zebrinus.     

半滑舌鳎(Cynoglossus semilaevis)Patched 1基因的克隆和表达分析

Hedgehog(Hh)信号通路在脊椎动物和非脊椎动物发育过程中细胞信号传导方面发挥重要的作用。Patched 1 (Ptc1)基因是Hh的受体,通过和Hh配体结合调节Hh信号通路。本研究克隆和鉴定了半滑舌鳎的Ptc1基因(csptc1),该基因cDNA全长为5212 nt,编码蛋白包括1543个氨基酸残基,序列比对和进化分析显示该蛋白在进化过程中较为保守。荧光定量显示该基因在脑,肝脏,心脏,鳃,肠,脾脏、肾脏和性腺组织中普遍表达,在精巢中的表达水平显著高于卵巢。精巢中的原位杂交信号主要位于该基因主要在初级精母细胞,次级精母细胞和支持细胞中,而在卵母细胞中的信号较弱。Csptc1基因在卵巢中的甲基化水平高于在雄鱼和伪雄鱼精巢中。这一研究结果可能说明csptc1基因参与了 Desert Hedgehog (DHH)基因维持雄鱼和伪雄鱼的生殖细胞系以及精子发生等生物学过程。