title: Identification of immune-relevant genes in histoincompatible rejecting colonies of the tunicate Botryllus schlosseri.
abstract: The colonial ascidian Botryllus schlosseri manifests a unique allorecognition system that is controlled by a single histocompatibility haplotype, the Fu/HC locus. When two allogeneic incompatible colonies come into direct contact, they develop inflammatory-like rejection lesions, called points of rejection (POR). While screening for differentially expressed genes during POR formation, we developed and analyzed a cDNA library of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) with 1693 unique ESTs that were clustered and assembled into 217 contigs and 1476 singlets. About 51% of these ESTs showed high similarity (E-value 0.005) to known database sequences, of which 123 matches were identified as immune-relevant genes encoding for stress proteins, pattern recognition receptors and complement proteins, proteases and protease inhibitors, cell adhesion and coagulation proteins, cytokine-related proteins, programmed cell death and proteasome-associated proteins. This first EST wide-screening analysis of the Botryllus allorecognition effector arm reveals a complex innate immune system, hallmarked by a whole genome response to allorecognition challenge.
authors.affiliation: Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, National Institute of Oceanography, P.O. Box 8030, Haifa 31080, Israel. matan@ocean.org.il
authors.forename: Matan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Oren
authors.forename: Jacob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Douek
authors.forename: Zvi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Fishelson
authors.forename: Baruch
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rinkevich
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D001777:Blood Coagulation / Q000235:genetics; D002448:Cell Adhesion; D016207:Cytokines / Q000235:genetics; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000235:genetics; D030561:Databases, Nucleic Acid; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000235:genetics*; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D006649:Histocompatibility Antigens / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology*; D037102:Lectins / Q000235:genetics; D009363:Neoplasm Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D010447:Peptide Hydrolases / Q000235:genetics; D011480:Protease Inhibitors / Q000378:metabolism; D014561:Urochordata / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics* / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D016207:Cytokines; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D006360:Heat-Shock Proteins; D006649:Histocompatibility Antigens; D037102:Lectins; D009363:Neoplasm Proteins; D011480:Protease Inhibitors; D010447:Peptide Hydrolases