Molecular cloning of a cDNA encoding alpha-glucosidase in the digestive gland of the shrimp, Litopenaeus vannamei

The complete sequence of the 3-kb cDNA and the 5' genomic structure are rep orted for the gene encoding the shrimp alpha-glucosidase. Alpha-glucosidase cDNA was isolated from a shrimp digestive gland cDNA library. The 2830-bas e pair cDNA contains an open reading frame that encodes 919 amino acids. Th e shrimp alpha-glucosidase cDNA shows a high level of identity with that of the human sucrase-isomaltase, human maltase-glucoamylase, and human acid l ysosomal alpha-glucosidase, indicating that the protein shares the same str uctural domains. The similarities among these proteins are found as cluster s and characterize the glycosyl hydrolase family 31. To our knowledge, this is the first report to describe a satellite sequence in the 5' genomic str ucture before the TATA box in an invertebrate sequence.