Molecular characterization of three heat shock protein 70 genes and their expression profiles under thermal stress in the citrus red mite.

Three heat shock protein 70 family transcripts, named PcHsp70-1, PcHsp70-2 and PcHsp70-3, were isolated from the citrus red mite, Panonychus citri. PcHsp70-1, PcHsp70-2, and PcHsp70-3 contained an open reading frame of 1977, 1968, and 2028 nucleotides that encoded 658, 655 and 675 amino acid residues, respectively. Comparison of deduced amino acid sequences of PcHsp70-1 and PcHsp70-2 showed 86.34% identity, while the amino acid sequence of PcHsp70-3 was only 57.39 and 58.75% identical to that of PcHsp70-1 and PcHsp70-2, respectively. Sequences and phylogenetic analyses suggested that PcHsp70-1 and PcHsp70-2 were cytosolic Hsps, whereas PcHsp70-3 was located in ER (endoplasmic reticulum). To accurately validate mRNA expression profiles of the three Hsp70s under thermal stress conditions, seven housekeeping genes were evaluated. Alpha-tubulin and RpII were selected as optimal endogenous references for cold shock and heat shock conditions, respectively. Real-time quantitative RT-PCR revealed that only the mRNA expression of PcHsp70-2 was up-regulated under heat shocks, and all of the three Hsp70s were constitutively expressed under cold shocks. The results suggest that the three Hsp70s were more critical to coping with heat than cold shocks.