ATG13 is involved in immune response of pathogen invasion in blood clam Tegillarca granosa

Yuling Wu; Guosheng Liu; Zengpeng Li; Mingliang Chen; Qin Wang

doi:10.3389/fvets.2023.1141284

ATG13 is involved in immune response of pathogen invasion in blood clam Tegillarca granosa

Front Vet Sci. 2023 Mar 2:10:1141284. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2023.1141284. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Yuling Wu^{1

2}, Guosheng Liu¹, Zengpeng Li¹, Mingliang Chen^{1

3

4}, Qin Wang²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Marine Genetic Resources, Third Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Xiamen, China.
² School of Life Science, Xiamen University, Xiamen, China.
³ Co-innovation Center of Jiangsu Marine Bio-Industry Technology, Jiangsu Ocean University, Lianyungang, China.
⁴ School of Marine Biology, Xiamen Ocean Vocational College, Xiamen, China.

Abstract

Mammalian autophagy-related gene 13 (ATG13) is a vital component of the ATG1 autophagy initiation complex which plays an essential role in autophagy. However, the molecular function of ATG13 in pathogen defense in invertebrates is still poorly understood. In this study, the full-length cDNA sequence of blood clam Tegillarca granosa ATG13 (TgATG13) was obtained, which was 1,918 bp in length, including 283 bp 5' UTR, 252 bp 3' UTR and 1,383 bp open reading frame (ORF) encoding 460 amino acids. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that TgATG13 had the closest relationship with that of Crassostrea Virginica. Quantitative real-time PCR results showed that the transcript of TgATG13 was universally expressed in various tissues of blood clam, with the highest expression level in hemocytes. The expression level of TgATG13 was robustly increased after exposure of both Vibrio alginolyticus and LPS. Fluorescence confocal microscopy further showed that TgATG13 promoted the production of autophagosome. In summary, our study demonstrated that TgATG13 was involved in the immune regulation of blood clam during pathogen invasion, deepening our understanding of the innate immune mechanism of blood clam.

Keywords: ATG13; LPS; Tegillarca granosa; autophagy; vibrio infection.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by Xiamen Youth Innovation Fund Project (3502Z20206098), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81872422), Science and Technology Project of Fujian Province (2022L3022), Scientific Research Foundation of Third Institute of Oceanography, SOA (2018016), Outstanding Young Talent Project, the Ministry of Natural Resources of China (12110600000018003927), Deep-Sea Habitats Discovery Project (DY-XZ-04), and Beihai Pilot City Program for the National Innovative Development of the Marine Economy (BHSFS002).