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Published January 15, 1996 | public
Journal Article

Sea Urchin Genes Expressed in Activated Coelomocytes Are Identified by Expressed Sequence Tags. Complement Homologues and Other Putative Immune Response Genes Suggest Immune System Homology Within the Deuterostomes

Abstract

To identify some of the genes expressed in LPS-activated coelomocytes, we sequenced randomly chosen clones from a directionally constructed cDNA library to produce a set of expressed sequence tags (ESTs). Deduced amino acid sequences from 307 ESTs were compared with known protein sequences in GenBank, and significant matches to approximately 30% of the clones were identified. Eighty-nine clones matched to 55 different proteins, including several putative immune effector proteins. In this work, we show the first identification of an invertebrate homologue of a vertebrate C component. Another EST matches to several short consensus repeats that are characteristic of a variety of proteins, including CR/regulatory proteins and clotting factors. Additional putative immune effector genes include 1) a Kazal-type protease inhibitor that may function to inactivate bacterial proteases, 2) a C-type lectin similar to echinoidin, and 3) a serine protease with similarities to thrombin, elastase, haptoglobin, and plasmin. Other EST categories include 1) cell surface proteins and receptors, 2) proteins involved in signaling systems, 3) lysosomal and secreted proteins, 4) cytoskeletal and cytoskeletal modifying proteins, 5) general cell function proteins, 6) proteins with unknown function, and 7) ESTs without significant matches, 25 with open reading frames. Many of the ESTs identified in this study represent the types of genes expected to be used in lower deuterostome immune functions.

Additional Information

© 1996 American Association of Immunologists. Received for publication June 13, 1995. Accepted for publication October 30, 1995. This work was supported by NSF Grant MCB9219330. The authors thank Drs. E. Rothenberg and M. Kroninberg and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked advertisement in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023