Cloning, Characterization, and Expression Analysis of MyD88 in Rana dybowskii

The myeloid differentiation factor 88 (MyD88) is the most common adaptor protein in toll-like receptor (TLR) signaling pathways and plays an important role in the innate immune system. In this report, we conducted rapid amplification of complementary DNA (cDNA) ends (RACE), multiple sequence alignment, conserved domain search, phylogenetic tree construction, and quantitative real-time PCR to obtain and analyze the full-length cDNA sequence, the amino acid sequential structures, and the expression patterns of Rana dybowskii (Rd) MyD88. The full-length cDNA of RdMyD88 is 1472 bp, with an open reading frame of 855 bp, encoding a protein of 285 amino acid residues. The RdMyD88 amino acid sequence contains a death domain (DD) and a Toll/interleukin-1 receptor (TIR) domain. RdMyD88 was calculated as a hydrophilic protein with predicted molecular mass and pI of 32.79 kDa and 6.00, respectively. Eighteen possible phosphorylation sites including eight serine residues, six tyrosine residues, and four threonine residues are predicted. Analysis of multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic tree revealed that the predicted RdMyD88 protein is closest to its Xenopus counterparts. The PCR result showed that RdMyD88 is expressed in various tissues of R. dybowskii. Quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) was used to examine the expression of RdMyD88 in the heart, liver, and kidney. After Rana grylio virus (RGV) exposure, the expression of RdMyD88 in the heart, liver, and kidney were significantly upregulated and reached peak levels at 48, 48, and 72 h post-infection (hpi), respectively. Meanwhile, in response to Aeromonas hydrophila (AH) infection, clear upregulation of RdMyD88 was observed in the heart, liver, and kidney and reached its peak at 48, 6, and 12 hpi, respectively. The highest levels of induction were found in the kidney after both RGV and AH infections. These findings indicate that RdMyD88 has a conserved structure and is probably an important component of the innate immunity in R. dybowskii. This report firstly characterized one adaptor molecule of the TLR signaling pathways in R. dybowskii, thereby providing reference for further researches on the amphibian innate immune system.