The clotting protein(CP) plays important and diverse roles in crustaceans,such as coagulation and lipid transportation.A clotting protein was purified from the hemolymph of Chinese shrimp Fenneropenaeus chinensis(named as Fc-CP) with Q sepharose HP anion-exchange chromatography and phenyl sepharose HP hydrophobic interaction chromatography.Fc-CP was able to form stable clots in vitro in the presence of hemocyte lysate and Ca2+,suggesting that the clotting reaction is catalyzed by a Ca2+-dependent transglutaminase in shrimp hemocytes.The molecular mass of Fc-CP was 380 kDa under non-reducing conditions and 190 kDa under reducing conditions as was determined with SDS-PAGE.CP exists as disulfide-linked homodimers and oligomers.The N-terminal amino acid sequence of Fc-CP was identical to that of shrimps including Penaeus monodon,Farfantepenaeus paulensis and Litopenaeus vannamei;and similar to that of other decapods.The purified Fc-CP was digested with trypsin and verified on an ABI 4700 matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization tandem time-of-flight(MALDI-TOF/TOF) mass spectrometry.Our results will aid to better understanding the coagulation mechanism of shrimp hemolymph.
WANG BaojiePENG HongniLIU MeiJIANG KeyongZHANG GuofanWANG Lei
Peptides in shrimp hemolymph play an important role in the innate immune response.Analysis of hemolymph will help to detect and identify potential novel biomarkers of microbial infection.We used magnetic bead-based purification(ClinProt system) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time of flight mass spectrometry(MALDI-TOF MS) to characterize shrimp hemolymph peptides.Shrimp serum and plasma were used as the source of samples for comparative analysis,and it was found that serum was more suitable for shrimp hemolymph peptidomic analysis.To screen potential specific biomarkers in serum of immune-challenged shrimps,we applied magnetic bead-based MALDI-TOF MS to serum samples from 10 immune-challenged and 10 healthy shrimps.The spectra were analyzed using FlexAnalysis 3.0 and ClinProTools 2.1 software.Thirteen peptide peaks significantly different between the two groups were selected as candidate biomarkers of lipopolysaccharide(LPS)-infection.The diagnostic model established by genetic algorithm using five of these peaks was able to discriminate LPS-challenged shrimps from healthy control shrimps with a sensitivity of 90% and a specificity of 100%.Our approach in MALDITOF MS-based peptidomics is a powerful tool for screening bioactive peptides or biomarkers derived from hemolymph,and will help to enable a better understanding of the innate immune response of shrimps.
