Molecular Cloning, Characterization and Expression Analysis of Calreticulin Gene in the Ant Polyrhachis vicina Roger (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)

Abstract

Calreticulin (CRT) as a ubiquitous and highly conserved calcium-binding protein exists in endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which possesses a variety of biological functions in the regulation of cell calcium homeostasis, molecular chaperoning and innate immunity. In our research, the calreticulin homologous gene (refered as PvCRT) was cloned from the ant Polyrhachis vicina Roger (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), the full-length cDNA of PvCRT is 1584bp base pairs（bp）, contains a 5’-untranslated region of 87bp and a 3’-untranslated region of 246bp. The open reading frame (ORF) of 1251bp encodes 416 amino acids. Using real-time quantitative RT-PCR to study PvCRT mRNA expression levels indicate that this gene was expressed in different developmental stages of castes of P. vicina. The mRNA expression level in both embryos and adults show that PvCRT gene may play some essential roles in the ant’s development.

Keywords

• Calreticulin homologous gene
• Molecular cloning
• real-time quantitative RT-PCR
• Polyrhachis vicina