Cloning and sequencing of a novel metallothionein gene in Mytilus galloprovincialis Lam |
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Authors: | Ceratto Nadia Dondero Francesco van de Loo Jan Willem Burlando Bruno Viarengo Aldo |
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Affiliation: | Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Avanzate, Università del Piemonte Orientale, C.so Borsalino, 54-15100 Alessandria, Italy. |
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Abstract: | Metallothionein (MT) is a ubiquitous, metal-inducible protein with an important role in the homeostasis and in the detoxification of heavy metals. This work reports the cloning and sequencing of a MT gene encoding a MT isoform (MT20-IIIa) in the mussel Mytilus galloprovincialis Lam, a lamellibranch mollusc known to accumulate and to detoxify large amounts of metal. The MT gene, lacking the 5' promoter region, is 1865 bp long and has a tripartite structure consisting of three exons and two introns. The putative open reading frame (ORF) encodes a polypeptide of 72 amino acids, which corresponds to the MT-I class, type 2 family (http://www.unizh.ch/~mtpage/classif.html). The structure of the gene and the putative MT20-III protein have been compared with those of other species. The putative biological significance of the differences at the amino acid level among the different MTs is discussed. |
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Keywords: | Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) Cloning Metallothionein Sequencing MT20 metallothionein isoform Genomic DNA |
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