Full-length cDNA Cloning and Tissues Expression Analysis of Ferritin Gene from Acipenser sinensis

According to the conserved sequence of the ferritin gene, a homologous sequence was obtained from the EST database through a BLAST search against the GenBank database. This sequence was amplified with the method of RT-PCR, false sequencing was corrected, and full length cDNA of the ferritin subunit from the Chinese sturgeon was obtained. After being submitted to the GenBank database, the sequence accession number EU348782 was assigned. With the length of 896 bp, this cDNA includes entire coding regions of 53 1bp, which encodes 176 amino acids (aa). The molecular weight was predicted to be 20339.9Mr and the theoretical isoelectric point 5.66. It shares 82.9% protein sequence homology with the ferritin of the Atlantic salmon. This gene is expressed in many organs of the Chinese sturgeon, for example, the liver, pancreas, muscle, brain, heart and gastric mucosa. The highest expression level was found in the pancreas and the heart, while the muscular tissue showed the lowest. Homology modeling was used to predict the 3-D structure of the protein, which included 5 alpha helices and 10 turns. The ferritin protein structure could be overlapped and showed high similarity with that of human, frog and bacteria. It was revealed that this kind of ferritin was highly conserved in structure and function.