title: A Toll receptor in shrimp.
abstract: Outbreaks of infectious diseases have resulted in high mortality and huge economic losses in penaeid shrimp culture. Interest in understanding shrimp immunity has increased because of its importance in disease control. Here we report cDNA cloning of a Toll receptor from the white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei. L. vannamei Toll (lToll) is 926 residues, with a putative signal peptide of 19 residues. The protein contains distinct structural/functional motifs of the Toll like receptor (TLR) family, including an extracellular domain containing 16 leucine-rich repeats (LRRs) flanked by cysteine-rich motifs and a cytoplasmic Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domain. The lToll TIR domain showed high similarity to Apis mellifer Toll and Drosophila melanogaster Toll, with 59.9% and 54.3% identity, respectively. Reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis showed that lToll was expressed in hemocyte, gill, heart, brain, stomach, intestine, pyloric caecum, muscle, nerve and spermary, with a lower expression level in eyestalk and hepatopancreas. Identification of lToll will help to elucidate the Toll pathway in shrimp innate immunity.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory for Biocontrol, School of Life Sciences, Zhongshan University, 135 Xingang Road West, Guangzhou 510275, PR China.
authors.forename: Li-Shi
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Zhi-Xin
authors.initials: ZX
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.forename: Ji-Xiang
authors.initials: JX
authors.lastname: Liao
authors.forename: Xian-De
authors.initials: XD
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Chang-Jun
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Shao-Ping
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Weng
authors.forename: Siu-Ming
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: Xiao-Qiang
authors.initials: XQ
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.forename: Jian-Guo
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: He
mesh_terms: D020816:Amino Acid Motifs / Q000235:genetics; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000276:immunology; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009928:Organ Specificity / Q000235:genetics; D033561:Penaeidae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology; D010802:Phylogeny; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary / Q000235:genetics; D051193:Toll-Like Receptors / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D051193:Toll-Like Receptors