Anti-IgM polyclonal antibody [FITC]

Clones encoding the dolphin IgM heavy (MU) chain gene were isolated from a cDNA library of peripheral blood leukocytes. Genomic Southern blot analyses showed that the dolphin IGHM gene is most likely present in a single copy, and its sequence shows greatest similarity to those of the IGHM gene of the sheep. pig and cow. evolutionarily related artiodactyls. The transmembrane (TM) form of the IGHM chain was isolated by 3' RACE. While showing similarities to the TM regions of other mammalian IGHM chains, the highly conserved Ser residue of the CART motif is substituted with a Gly in the dolphin. In contrast to the pig and cow. which utilize only a single VH family, the dolphin expresses at least two distinct VH families, belonging to the mammalian VH clans I and III. At least two JH genes were identified in the dolphin. Some CDR3 regions of the dolphin VH are long (up to 21 amino acids), and contain multiple Cys residues. hypothesized to stabilize the CDR3 structure through disulfide bond formation. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Background: Skin and its mucus are known to be the first barrier of defence against any external stressors. In fish, skin wounds frequently appear as a result of intensive culture and also some diseases have skin ulcers as external clinical signs. However, there is no information about the changes produced by the wounds in the mucosae. In the present paper, we have studied the alterations in the proteome map of skin mucus of gilthead seabream during healing of experimentally produced chronic wounds by 2-DE followed by LC-MS/MS. The corresponding gene expression changes of some identified skin proteins were also investigated through qPCR. Results: Our study has successfully identified 21 differentially expressed proteins involved in immunity and stress processes as well as other metabolic and structural proteins and revealed, for the first time, that all are downregulated in the skin mucus of wounded seabream specimens. At transcript level, we found that four of nine markers (ighm, gst3, actb and krt1) were downregulated after causing the wounds while the rest of them remained unaltered in the wounded fish. Finally, ELISA analysis revealed that IgM levels were significantly lower in wounded fish compared to the control fish. Conclusions: Our study revealed a decreased-expression at protein and for some transcripts at mRNA levels in wounded fish, which could affect the functionality of these molecules, and therefore, delay the wound healing process and increase the susceptibility to any infection after wounds in the skin of gilthead seabream.