DURICA, D.S.*; KUPFER, D.; SO, S.; LI, H.; WU, X; HOPKINS, P.M.; ROE, B.; Univ. of Oklahoma; Univ. of Oklahoma; Univ. of Oklahoma; Univ. of Oklahoma; Univ. of Oklahoma; Univ. of Oklahoma; Univ. of Oklahoma; : An EST database of mRNAs Expressed during Crustaean Limb Regeneration

A pilot study has generated approximately 1500 ESTs from a Uca pugilator (fiddler crab) blastemal tissue cDNA library made from mRNA isolated four days post-autotomy, from a period when the first sign of morphological differentiation, cuticle secretion, is observed. These include several genes that may be potentially ecdysteroid-responsive, such as homologs to chaperone proteins and cuticle protein genes, as well as homologs to arthropod enzymes involved in retinoid/terpenoid metabolism (e.g. farnesoic acid O methyl transferase; juvenile hormone esterase). One EST also shares high sequence similarity (46% identity and 55% chemical similarity) to vertebrate and invertebrate cytoplasmic retinoic acid binding proteins (CRABPs). A categorization of the EST library in terms of general biological assignments of function will be presented. A web site for this database has been established (http://www.genome.ou.edu/crab.html) providing both search capabilities and sequence information (via anonymous ftp) to the general scientific community. This pilot database will be expanded as more information is collected from other libraries. We envisage the eventual development of microarrays from this and similar databases that would have broad applications in studies of crustacean endocrine signaling mechanisms