title: Characterization of an IkappaB-like gene in Cotesia vestalis polydnavirus.
abstract: Cotesia vestalis (Braconidae, Hymenoptera) depends mainly on 3 regulatory factors to manipulate its host's development and immune response, including polydnavirus, venom, and teratocytes, among which polydnavirus plays a key role in suppressing the host immune system. In the present work, we cloned the full sequence of gene CvBV-ank2, encoding an IkappaB-like protein in C. vestalis polydnavirus (CvBV). The full sequence of CvBV-ank2 is 955 bp, encoding 162 amino acids with a calculated molecular mass of 18,355 Da. CvBV-ank2 shares high similarity with the exon I and exon II of CvBV-ank1, which is on the same segment with CvBV-ank2. This result suggests that gene duplication might occur in CvBV-ank1 and CvBV-ank2. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that CvBV-ank2 and CvBV-ank1, both on segment CvBV-S2, are, respectively, closely related with CcBV-26.3 and CcBV-26.2, both on segment Circle26 of C. congregata polydnavirus (CcBV). BLAST search using the sequence of segment CvBV-S2 as a query revealed that segment CvBV-S2 shares 90% max identity with segment Circle26 of CcBV over 67% query coverage. These results demonstrate that there is not only gene similarity, but also segment similarity between CvBV and CcBV. Transcripts of CvBV-ank2 were detected as early as 0.5 h post-parasitization and continued to be detected for 6 days, indicating that CvBV-ank2 might be involved in the early protection of the parasitoid egg.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Insect Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Ya-Feng
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Peng-Cheng
authors.initials: PC
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Fang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Xue-Xin
authors.initials: XX
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D017487:Ankyrins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D001483:Base Sequence; D005260:Female; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions / Q000276:immunology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009036:Moths / Q000469:parasitology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D018071:Polydnaviridae / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D014863:Wasps / Q000502:physiology / Q000821:virology*
chemical_list: D017487:Ankyrins