Promoter of shrimp translationally controlled tumor protein (TCTP) gene has higher activity than cytomegavirus (CMV) promoter in driving foreign genes to express in primary shrimp cells

Abstract Active promoters are urgently needed for shrimp cells which are hard to be immortalized. Translationally controlled tumor protein (TCTP) is a widely and abundantly expressed, growth-related protein. In this study we successfully isolated the promoter (P tctp ) and ORF (= open reading frame) of the TCTP gene from Litopenaeus vannamei and analysed the promoter activity of P tctp and the growth-promoting effects of over-expressed TCTP protein in the primary Oka organ (lymphoid tissue) cells. It was found, that cytomegavirus (CMV) promoter, highly active in mammalian and fish cells, had a driving activity too low to be detected in shrimp cells. However, shrimp P tctp had a higher driving activity than P cmv in the shrimp cells and an obvious fluorescent signal was observed in the shrimp cells transfected by a P cmv -P tctp -driven plasmid. However, no obvious growth-promoting effects were observed in the eGFP/TCTP [eGFP = enhanced green fluorescent protein] or TCTP-transfected shrimp cells possibly due to the relatively low expression efficiency.