AUTHOR=Qiu Jia-yin , Zheng Li-bing , Chi Chang-feng 

TITLE=Identification, Characterization, and Expression of a PRQFVamide-Related Peptide in Cephalopod Sepiella japonica

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Marine Science

VOLUME=9

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.805209

DOI=10.3389/fmars.2022.805209

ISSN=2296-7745

ABSTRACT=<p>Neuropeptides, as neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, have a variety of physiological functions in the mollusk. Here, a <italic>PRQFVamide-related peptide</italic> gene was cloned from cuttlefish <italic>Sepiella japonica</italic> (designated as <italic>SjPRQFVRP</italic>, GenBank Accession No: <ext-link ext-link-type="DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank" xlink:href="OK999997" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">OK999997</ext-link>). The full length of <italic>SjPRQFVRP</italic> is 1748 bp, including an open reading frame (ORF) of 738 bp encoding 245 amino acids. The putative precursor protein comprises one signal peptide and four different mature pentapeptides: fourteen copies of PMEFLamide, three copies of RMEFLamide, one copy of AMEFLamide and GMEFLamide. Multiple alignments showed <italic>Sj</italic>PRQFVRP shared 71% identity with that of <italic>Octopus vulgaris</italic> and supported the phylogenetic analysis. The spatio-temporal expression pattern showed that <italic>SjPRQFVRP</italic> mRNA was widely expressed among the 13 tissues and primarily abundantly expressed in the brain and optic lobe during the whole development stage. <italic>In situ</italic> hybridization data indicated that <italic>SjPRQFVRP</italic> was detected in the vertical lobe, subvertical lobe, anterior basal lobe, anterior pedal lobe, and optic lobes of the brain. Subcellular localization analysis revealed that the <italic>Sj</italic>PRQFVRP protein was localized in the cytoplasm of HEK293 cells. Collectively, the results will provide a foundation for further exploring the mechanism of <italic>SjPRQFVRP</italic> function in cephalopods.</p>