Structural and functional characterizations of an Activin type II receptor orthologue from the pacific oyster Crassostrea gigas

Type Article
Date 2009-05
Language English
Author(s) Le Quere Herve1, Herpin Amaury3, Huvet ArnaudORCID2, Lelong Christophe1, Favrel Pascal1
Affiliation(s) 1 : Univ Caen Basse Normandie Physiol & Ecophysiol Mo, UMR M100, IFREMER, IBFA,IFR ICORE 146, F-14032 Caen, France.
2 : Univ Caen Basse Normandie Physiol & Ecophysiol Mo, UMR M100, Ctr IFREMER, F-29280 Plouzane, France.
3 : Univ Wurzburg, Dept Physiol Chem 1, D-97074 Wurzburg, Germany.
Source Gene (0378-1119) (Elsevier), 2009-05 , Vol. 436 , N. 1-2 , P. 101-107
DOI 10.1016/j.gene.2009.01.010
WOS© Times Cited 16
Keyword(s) Activin receptor, Nervous tissues, Development, Lophotrochozoa, Mollusc
Abstract Members of the Transforming Growth factor beta (TGF-beta) superfamily of cell signalling polypeptides are known to play important roles in cell proliferation and differentiation during development and in various physiological processes of most animal clades. Recent findings in the mollusc Crassostrea gigas demonstrate the occurrence of a diversity of TGF-beta signalling components including various ligands, three type I receptors but only a single type II receptor. This report describes the characterization of Cg-ActRII, a new type II receptor displaying homology with vertebrate and Drosophila Activin type II receptors. The use of zebrafish embryo as a reporter organism revealed that, in a way similar to its zebrafish counterpart, overexpression of Cg-ActRII or its dominant negative acting truncated form resulted in a dose dependent range of dorsoventral defects coupled with anterior disorders. Expression pattern of Cg-ActRII transcripts examined by real time PCR and in situ PCR in C gigas showed high levels of Cg-ActRII transcripts in early embryonic stages and in the developing larval central nervous system. Except for a high expression in the visceral ganglia, most oyster adult tissues displayed rather low levels of transcripts. Altogether, the data suggest a high degree of conservation at both the structural and functional levels during evolution for this class of receptors. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Full Text
File Pages Size Access
publication-6401.pdf 10 530 KB Open access
Top of the page