Molecular characteristics of three thymosin-repeat proteins from Marsupenaeus japonicus and their responses to WSSV infection

β-thymosins, a family of highly conserved peptides, play a vital role in wound-healing, angiogenesis,antimicrobial process and antiviral immunity. Three novel β-thymosin-repeat proteins, named mjthm4, mjthm3 and mjthm2, were cloned from Marsupenaeus japonicus using expressed sequence tags（EST） from suppression subtractive hybridization. The mjthm4, mjthm3 and mjthm2 c DNAs possessed open reading frames that encoded166, 128 and 90 amino acid residue polypeptides and contained four, three and two β-thymosin actin binding modules, respectively. Blast analysis demonstrated that mjthm4, mjthm3 and mjthm2 shared high homology with known invertebrate multi-repeat β-thymosins. These proteins are ubiquitously expressed in all of the examined tissues, and the transcriptional levels were highest in the intestine. Further investigation revealed that mjthm4,mjthm3 and mjthm2 were remarkably up-regulated 6 h after WSSV infection. Moreover, while mjthm4 transcriptional levels displayed no changes, mjthm3 and mjthm2 levels decreased in the virus-resistant shrimps.The results indicate that mjthm4, mjthm3 and mjthm2 are novel multi-repeat β-thymosin homologues, have a close relationship with WSSV infection, and might contribute to a better understanding of host defense and/or virus invasion interactions in shrimps.