Abstract:
The Chinese giant salam Andrias davidianus isendemicto China and is the largest remaining amphibian in the world, which has considerable economic and scientific significance. However, epidemic of ranavirus disease have been responsible forthe wild population continued to decline a sharp drop in giant salamander production. For better understanding of the physiological and biochemical reactions, and antiviral responses of Chinese giant salamander, the protein profiles of serum and mucus from control and infected giant salamanders were analysized and compared by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrilamide gel electrophoresis(SDS-PAGE) and the densitometric analysis. The results show that protein bands from control serum (CS) and infected serum (including natural infected serum, NS and artificial infection serum, AS) were enriched at 6080 kD, the contents were more than 42% of total protein. CS has 16 protein bands between 1457 kD. Besides, sixteen protein bandswere present among 1457 kD in CS: 57, 53, 50, 43, 40, 38, 36, 31, 27, 26, 25, 22, 16, 15.5, 15 and 14kD. Fourprotein bands 53, 33, 22 and 16 kD were different between CS and NS, AS. Control mucus (CM) and infected mucus (including n atural infection mucus, NM and artificial infection mucus, AM) have eleven common protein bands 116, 100, 75, 57, 53, 45, 27, 18, 17, 16 and 15 kD. But infected giant salamander mucus NM and AM have seven other protein bands 90, 52, 43, 32, 26, 20 and 13 kD. Furthermore, the protein contents of some bands have changed, for example, the 45 kD band in CM makes up 19.3% of total protein. However, it only makes up 3.8% in AM. This study has demonstrated that ranavirus infection can lead to protein components change in Chinese giant salamanders mucus and serum, which provided valuable information for explore antiviral associated protein biomarkers in amphibians.