Molecular and functional characteristics of a short-chain odorant binding protein gene PstrOBP-sc from Phyllotreta striolata
[Objective]The study aimed to analyze the molecular and functional characteristics of the short-chain odo-rant binding protein(OBP)gene PstrOBP-sc from Phyllotreta striolata,providing reference for exploring the function of short-chain OBP genes in insects.[Method]The short-chain Classic OBP gene from P.striolata was cloned using reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR)and subjected to bioinformatics analysis.The expression of the short-chain OBP gene in different tissues of male and female adult P.striolata was analyzed by RT-PCR.A recombinant expres-sion vector was constructed for the heterologous expression of the short chain OBP gene,and the target protein was veri-fied using sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis(SDS-PAGE)and Western blotting techniques.The ligand-binding ability of the short-chain OBP was detected using fluorescence binding assay.[Result]A short-chain OBP gene(PstrOBP-sc)from P.striolata with a complete open reading frame was successfully obtained through RT-PCR clo-ning and verification.The PstrOBP-sc gene contained an open reading frame of 357 bp,encoding 118 amino acid resi-dues,with a signal peptide of 20 amino acid residues at the N-terminal end.The mature protein PSTROBP-SC consisted of only 98 amino acid residues and contained 6 conserved cysteines in its sequence,making it a typical short-chain OBP gene.Protein secondary structure prediction showed that the PSTROBP-SC protein contained only 5 α-helixes,and there were only 2 amino acid residues in the downstream of the fifth α-helix.The tissue expression pattern of the PstrOBP-sc gene and the ligand-binding ability of the heterologously expressed PSTROBP-SC protein showed that the PstrOBP-sc gene was expressed in all tested tissues of male and female adult P.striolata,and was not specifically expressed in olfac-tory organs.Additionally,the heterologously expressed PSTROBP-SC could not bind to the fluorescence probe 1-NPN.[Conclusion]The molecular and functional characteristics of PstrOBP-sc gene are different from those of the currently widely studied medium-long chain OBP genes,and it is likely to perform other physiological functions besides olfaction in the organism.