Expression and activity of V‐H+‐ATPase in gill and kidney of marbled eel Anguilla marmorata in response to salinity challenge

The full‐length complementary (c)DNA of vacuolar‐type‐H⁺‐ATPase B1 gene (vhab1) in marbled eel Anguilla marmorata with 1741 base pairs (bp) was identified. It contained a 1512 bp open reading frame encoding a polypeptide with 503 amino acids (55·9 kDa), an 83 bp 5′‐untranslated region (UTR) and a 146 bp 3′‐UTR. The expression levels of A. marmorata vhab1 in gill and kidney of A. marmorata were evaluated at different intervals during the exposure to various salinities (0, 10 and 25). The results indicated that the expression levels of A. marmorata vhab1 messenger (m)RNA in gill and kidney had a significant increase and reached the highest level at 1 h in brackish water (BW, salinity 10) group and 6 h in seawater (SW, salinity 25) group. Therefore, salinity did affect the relative expression level of A. marmorata vhab1 mRNA in gills, which exhibited the enhancement by c. 44 times in SW group when compared with that in fresh water. No remarkable difference in the expression of A. marmorata vhab1 mRNA was observed after 15 days of SW exposure (P > 0·05). V‐H⁺‐ATPase activity exhibited an increase by two‐ to three‐fold when compared with that in gill and kidney from the control group. The consequence primarily suggested that A. marmorata vhab1 gene product in elvers from A. marmorata plays an important role in adaptation response to SW.