Glutathione S-Transferases in Marine Copepods

Abstract

The glutathione S-transferase (GST) is a complex family of phase II detoxification enzymes, known for their ability to catalyze the conjugation of the reduced form of glutathione (GSH) to a wide variety of endogenous and exogenous electrophilic compounds for detoxification purposes. In marine environments, copepods are constantly exposed to multiple exogenous stressors, thus their capability of detoxification is key for survival. Full identification of the GST family in copepods has been limited only to few species. As for insects, the GST family includes a wide range of genes that, based on their cellular localization, can be divided in three classes: cytosolic, microsomal, and mitochondrial. The role of GSTs might have class-specific features, thus understanding the nature of the GST family has become crucial. This paper covers information of the GST activity in marine copepods based on studies investigating gene expression, protein content, and enzymatic activity. Using published literature and mining new publicly available transcriptomes, we characterized the multiplicity of the GST family in copepods from different orders and families, highlighting the possible role of these genes as biomarker for ocean health status monitoring.

The Distribution of Ferritins in Marine Copepods

“…In consideration of the critical role of ferritin in Fe homeostasis, the aim of this study is to expand the understanding of the ferritin diversity and function in copepods. Mining the publicly available high-quality transcriptomes for several calanoid families [15][16][17], we examined the presence of transcripts encoding ferritins and compared them to homologous ferritins in D. melanogaster and in salmon louse L. salmonis. To provide a better understanding of the functioning of these genes, the expression of ferritins was examined using existing RNASeq data in C. finmarchicus, Calanus helgolandicus and Temora stylifera.…”

Nutrient Starvation Exposure Induced the Down-Regulation of Stress Responsive Genes and Selected Bioactive Metabolic Pathways in Phaeodactylum tricornutum

“…Phase II consists in conjugation reactions, such as with the antioxidant compound glutathione. Glutathione synthase (GSH) and glutathione peroxidase (GPX) are involved in glutathione metabolism [35,40]. In addition, we studied heat shock proteins (HSPs), known to be activated in response to various environmental stress factors [34], superoxide dismutase (SOD) responsible for reactive oxygen species detoxification [39], proteins related to cell death/division (i.e., mitotic spindle assembly checkpoint proteins (MAD1 and MAD2) and metacaspase (CASP) [38,41]), and other stress responsive genes, such as ascorbate peroxidase (APX), glycolate oxidase (GOX), tocopherol cyclase (TOC) and hystone deacetylase (HYS) [36,37,42,43].…”