Molecular Characterization of Caspase8 in Grass Carp (Ctenopharyngodon Idella)

Abstract

Abstract. Caspase8 is a crucial effector member of the caspases family. It is well known that caspase8 plays a vital role in apoptosis signal transduction mediated through death receptor pathway in mammals. In the present study, grass carp caspase8 (gcCasp8) coding sequence was isolated and identified. The gcCasp8 CDS and amino acid sequence shared 45.36%-80.06% and 32.5%-71.25% with its counterparts in other teleost species and mammals, respectively. Furthermore, similar to human counterpart, the gcCasp8 CDS consisted of 8 exons and 7 introns, with one exon less than zebrafish homolog. In addition, gcCasp8 possessed caspase domain and catalytic site conserved with homologs in the known species. These results show that grass carp caspase8 has a structure similarity to teleost and mammalian caspase8 orthologs, and our study lay the theoretically foundation for further study of caspase8 function involving in apoptosis in grass carp.