IDENTIFICATION OF ONE TACHYKININ-RELATED AND 2 KININ-RELATED PEPTIDESIN THE BRAIN OF THE WHITE SHRIMP, PENAEUS-VANNAMEI

This paper reports the purification of three myotropic neuropeptides f rom the white shrimp Penaeus vannamei, The central nervous systems of 3500 shrimps were extracted in an acidified solvent, after which four to five HPLC column systems were used to obtain pure peptides, A cockr oach hindgut muscle contraction bioassay was used to monitor all colle cted fractions. The pure peptides were submitted to Edman degradation based automated microsequencing, Mass spectrometry and chemical synthe sis confirmed the sequences. Ala-Pro-Ser-Gly-Phe-Leu-Gly-Met-Arg-NH2 ( Pev-tachykinin, 934.1 Da) belongs to the tachykinin family with identi fied members in all vertebrate classes and some invertebrate classes: arthropods, annelids and molluscs. A very specific Pev-tachykinin anti serum was developed, which labels 4 neurosecretory cells in the brain. Ala-Ser-Phe-Ser-Pro-Trp-Gly-NH2 (Pev-kinin 1, 749.8 Da) and Asp-Phe-S er-AIa-Trp-Ala-NH2 (Pev-kinin 2, 694.7 Da) are the first crustacean ki nins. Pev-kinin 2 is the first kinin with a Trp-Ala-NH2 instead of a k inin-typical Trp-Gly-NH2 carboxyterminus. (C) 1998 Academic Press.