Identification of novel adhesive proteins in pearl oyster by proteomic and bioinformatic analysis

Abstract

Byssuses, which are proteinaceous fibers secreted by mollusks, are remarkable underwater adhesives. Although mussel adhesives are well known, much less is known about the byssal proteins of pearl oysters especially in the adhesive regions. In this study, adhesive proteins from the pearl oyster Pinctada fucata were studied in depth by transcriptomics and proteomics approaches. In total, 16 novel proteins were identified including a von Willebrand factor type A domain-containing protein, a thrombospondin-1-like protein, tyrosinase, mucin-like proteins, protease inhibitors, and Pinctada unannotated foot protein 3 (PUF3) to PUF6. Interestingly, PUF3-6 are enriched with glycine, serine, and PXG (X = F/Y/W/K/L) motifs and are highly expressed in the foot. The identification of byssal proteins of the pearl oyster is a key step for understanding byssus formation and may inspire the synthesis of novel adhesives for underwater use and the development of anti-biofouling strategies.

Keywords:

• Byssus
• adhesive
• transcriptome
• proteome
• pearl oyster

Acknowledgments

Chuang Liu gratefully acknowledges the support of the Fundamental Research funds for the Central Universities B200201065. Rongqing Zhang acknowledges the support of the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grants 31872543 and 32072951 and the National Key R&D Program of China (grant No. 2018YFC0310600).

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Author contributions

C.L. conceived the project, performed the experiment, analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. R.Q.Z analyzed the data and revised the manuscript. C.L. and R.Q.Z acquired funding.