Cloning and expression analysis of a small HSP26 gene of Pacific abalone (Haliotis discus hannai).

Heat shock proteins (HSPs) are evolutionally conserved from micro organism to mammals and play important roles in many biological processes including thermal tolerance. We isolated a homologue of small HSP26 (sHSP26) from a subtracted cDNA library of heat shock-treated abalone (Haliotis discus hannai). The abalone sHSP26 encompossed 793 nt, including a coding region of 501 nt. The deduced amino acid sequence of the abalone sHSP26 contained well conserved alpha-crystallin domain and showed overall identities of 27-31% with the other species' sHSP proteins. The abalone sHSP26 transcript was induced by heat shock treatment, but not by cold shock treatment.