Heparin cofactor II (RbHCII) from rock bream (Oplegnathus fasciatus): Molecular characterization, cloning and expression analysis

Heparin cofactor (HCII) is a serine protease inhibitor (SPI), and plays important physiological roles in various biological events including hemostasis. The gene encoding the HCII was isolated from GS-FLX™ genomic data of rock bream (Oplegnathus fasciatus), designated as RbHCII. The RbHCII (1950 bp) consists of a 1512 bp open reading frame (ORF) encoding 504 amino acids (aa), with a signal peptide of 19 aa residues. The predicted molecular mass and the estimated isoelectric point of RbHCII were 58 kDa and 5.9, respectively. The deduced aa sequence of RbHCII displayed a characteristic serpin domain and a serpin signature motif (FTVDQPFLFLI). RbHCII demonstrated homology with vertebrate HCIIs and the greatest degree of similarity (90.1%) was observed with Gasterosteus aculeatus HCII. Various functional domains including the reactive center loop (RCL), glycosaminoglycan (GAG) and thrombin binding sites and acidic repeats of human and RbHCII were found to be orthologs through the molecular modeling studies. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that RbHCII belongs to the clade D serpins, and is closely related to the clade A members. Constitutive expression of RbHCII mRNA was detected at different levels in various tissues in a tissue-specific manner. Interestingly, RbHCII transcription was significantly downregulated (p < 0.05) in liver after challenge with lipopolysaccharide (LPS), Edwardsiella tarda and rock bream iridovirus (RBIV). However, after the immune challenges, RbHCII showed a significant downregulation in blood tissue only at the late-phase of investigation. The recombinant RbHCII (rRbHCII) was overexpressed in Rosetta-gami (DE3) cells and purified using the pMAL™ system. The rRbHCII inhibited thrombin and chymotrypsin in a dose-dependent manner. Remarkably, heparin was found to be an enhancer of RbHCII’s thrombin-inhibitory activity. Correlating the heparin-dependent thrombin-inhibition activity of RbHCII with its temporal downregulation against immune stimulants, it could be suggested that it is not only involved in the blood coagulation cascade, but also plays an incognito role in immune modulation.