The molecular heterogeneity of hemocyanin: Its role in the adaptive plasticity of Crustacea

Hypoxia Tolerance in Animals: Biology and Application

“…The protein is composed of multiple subunits that self-assemble into hexameric arrays; in the Dungeness crab Cancer magister, each Hc subunit is encoded by a separate gene . The high degrees of plasticity and diversity at both the structural and functional levels afforded by the molecular heterogeneity of crustacean Hc is thought to provide these animals with flexible adaptation, both developmentally and evolutionarily (Markl and Decker 1992;Giomi and Beltramini 2007). Working in concert with this strategy of functionally heterogeneous oxygen transporters is the ability to rapidly mobilize a suite of defenses, both behavioral and molecular, against a variable thermal regime or fluctuating oxygen and salinity concentrations in the environment through closely coordinated pathways of gene regulation.…”

Identification and agglutination properties of hemocyanin from the mud crab (Scylla serrata)

“…So far, about 50 different hemocyanins from crustaceans, insects, chelicerates, myriapods and onychophorans have been characterized [27]. However, hemocyanin from the mud crab (S. serrata) has not previously been investigated.…”

Effect of Confinement and Starvation on Stress Parameters in the American Lobster (Homarus Americanus)

“…Although the physiological stress induces also the mobilization of other proteins, including the metallothionein and the stress proteins (Cimino et al, 2002;Ravaux et al, 2007), Hcs are widely used for monitoring the welfare condition of crustaceans. Hemocianines are oligomeric proteins formed by the aggregation of subunits whose molecular weights are between 65 and Confinement and starvation in H. americanus It has also been observed that the number of subunits constituting the Hcs has an interspecific variability (Giomi and Beltramini, 2007). With respect to this, Hodgson and Spicer (2001), analyzing the electrophoretic pattern of hemolymph,found that Hcs of different species of decapods have a number of subunits between six and ten.…”