Dai Jixun

Isolation, cloning and sequencing of AFLP markers related to disease-resistance traits inFenneropenaeus chinensis

Amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) technique was used to analyze the fingerprinting of four successive generations ofFenneropenaeus chinensis to reveal their disease-resistance traits. Some loci showed quite different genetic frequencies due to artificial selection, which implied that these fragments were putative markers related to the disease-resistance trait. We developed a simple and effective method to further characterize these AFLP fragments. Specific AFLP bands were cut directly from polyacrylamide gels, re-amplified, cloned and sequenced. Eight putative genetic markers were sequenced and their sizes ranged from 63 to 209 bp. The sequences were submitted to dbGSS (database of Genome Sequence Survey); and the BLAST analysis showed low similarity to the function genes, indicating these markers were tightly linked to a disease-resistance trait but were not functional genes.

Purification and inhibition fungal growth of chitinases fromVibrio pacini

Vibrio pacini synthesizes multiple chitinases, of which three have been purified in this study by ammonium sulphate fractionation, chitin affinity chromatography and gel chromatography. Molecular weights of the three chitinases, Chi1, Chi2 and Chi3 are 27×103, 39×103 and 46×103 respectively, as determined by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). The purified enzymes have optimal activity at pH 7–8, and retain 50% enzymatic activity pH 4–9. The activities of chitinases are inhibited by Pb2+, Fe3+ and Cu2+, and increased by Ca2+, Mg2+ and Mn2+. Chi3 is found to inhibit the growth of six species of fungi. Such characters of chitinase are different from those of any other chitinase that were reported before.

The influence of Fe2+ on growth and development of cells enzymatically isolated fromPorphyra yezoensis blades

Fe2+ acted as an accessorial factor for many cellular enzymatic reactions is very important for seaweed growth and development, but the Fe2+ requirement in nori had not been seen,Porphyra yezoensis cells were separated enzymatically and cultured in a series of sterilized seawater media containing various concentrations of Fe2+. The growth development and cell were investigated in this work. Through this experiment, two biologically-meant concentration scales were found, one is low concentrations, 12.1–102.1 μg/L, 10–100 times than that in seawater, favoring the development of isolated cells ofPorphyra and the other was high concentrations, more than 10mg/L inhibiting the cell growth, leading to the deformity and shrinkage of the cells. At the concentration of 50 mg/L, the cells stopped growing and died eventually.