Characterization of two myostatin genes in pufferfish<i>Takifugu bimaculatus</i>: sequence, genomic structure, and expression

Abstract

Myostatin (MSTN) is a negative regulator of muscle growth, which restrains the proliferation and differentiation of myoblasts. To understand the role of two <i>mstn</i> genes of <i>Takifugu bimaculatus</i>, the full-length cDNAs of 1131 bp <i>Tbmstn1</i> and 1,080 bp <i>Tbmstn2</i> were obtained from the <i>T. bimaculatus</i>' genomic database, which encodes 376 and 359 amino acids, respectively. The results of qRT-PCR showed that <i>Tbmstn1</i> was expressed in the eye, kidney, spleen, skeletal muscle, gill, and brain, and the expression level in the skeletal muscle was extremely significantly higher than in other examined tissues. <i>Tbmstn2</i> was expressed in the skin, skeletal muscle, gill, and brain, and had the highest expression in the skeletal muscle, followed by expression in the brain. Meanwhile, in different stages of embryonic development, the expression of <i>Tbmstn1</i> started from the gastrula stage. Its expression in the eye-pigment formation stage and hatching stage was significantly higher than that in other stages. The <i>Tbmstn2</i> was expressed in all examined embryonic stages with different levels, and the highest expression was detected in the eye-pigment formation stage. These results suggested that <i>Tbmstn1</i> and <i>Tbmstn2</i> may involve in the development of skeletal muscle, and <i>Tbmstn2</i> may be related to the formation of nervous system.