title: Purification and characterization of a tachykinin-like peptide from skin secretions of the tree frog, Theloderma kwangsiensis.
abstract: Most amphibians belonging to Rhacophoridae have an arboreal life. A large amount of bioactive peptides have been identified from amphibian skin, but none from amphibians belonging to Rhacophoridae have been reported to date. A tachykinin-like peptide, tachykinin-Thel, was purified and characterized from skin secretions of the tree frog, Theloderma kwangsiensis. Its primary structure was determined as KPSPDRFYGLM-NH2 by Edman degradation and mass spectrometry analysis. cDNA sequence encoding the precursor of tachykinin-Thel was cloned from the skin cDNA library. Tachykinin-Thel induced the contraction of isolated ileum smooth muscle in a dose-dependent manner. The current work reported a bioactive peptide, tachykinin-Thel, from Rhacophoridae amphibians and confirmed the presence of tachykinin-like peptide in the skin of the tree frog, which may facilitate their arboreal life.
authors.affiliation: Life Sciences College of Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, Jiangsu, China.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.forename: Chengda
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: Jeff Jinfeng
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.forename: Yuzhu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Song
authors.forename: Huan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001001:Anura / Q000502:physiology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D012867:Skin / Q000378:metabolism*; D015320:Tachykinins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D015320:Tachykinins