Cloning and expression analysis of a peptidoglycan recognition protein in silkworm related to virus infection

In this study, the full-length cDNA of a peptidoglycan recognition protein named BmPGRP-S3 was identified from the silkworm, Bombyx mori by rapid amplification of cDNA ends. It is 807 bp and comprises the following: a 5′-untranslated region (UTR) with a length of 112 bp, a 3′-UTR with a length of 92 bp including a poly-adenylation signal sequence (AATAAA) and a poly(A) tail. The longest open reading frame (ORF) of BmPGRP-S3 is 603 bp and encodes a polypeptide of 200 amino acids with a predicted molecular weight of 22.3 kDa including a PGRP domain. Sequence similarity and phylogenic analysis results indicated that BmPGRP-S3 belongs to the group of insect PGRPs and is closer to BmPGRP-S4 with the highest identity of 68%. Fluorescent quantitative real-time PCR results revealed that the mRNA transcripts of BmPGRP-S3 were presented in all of the tissues, but were highest in the midgut. In the silkworm larvae infected with B. mori cytoplasmic polyhedrosis virus (BmCPV), the relative expression level of BmPGRP-S3 was upregulated. The DNA segment of a mature BmPGRP-S3 peptide was inserted into the expression plasmid pET-28a(+) to construct a recombinant expression plasmid. Western blot results revealed that mature BmPGRP-S3 could be detected in the hemolymph and midgut which were the most important immune tissues in silkworm. All the results suggested that BmPGRP-S3 may play an important role in the immune response of silkworm to BmCPV infection and provided helpful information for further studying the function of BmPGRP-S3 in silkworm.