Cloning and Sequencing of a Gene Encoding GOBP2 in the Antenna of Spodoptera exigua

A pair of degenerate primers was designed, based on the comparison of five insects' GOBP2 gene sequences reported previously. A specific band (about 400bp in length) was amplified from cDNA of Spodoptera exigua antenna and another specific band (about 2kb in length) was amplified from genomic DNA.The two segments were cloned into T-easy vector, respectively. Results of sequencing and structural analysis showed that the full-length of GOBP2Sexi ORF is 426bp, 141 amino acid residues were encoded. The predicted MW and pI are 16.07ku and 5.09, respectively. There are six conservative Cys locus in the sequence, which is the typical characteristic of OBPs. GOBP2Sexi gene was inserted by two introns between amino acid residue 22 and 23 and between 82 and 83. The length of two introns is 160bp and 1403bp. Results of Northern blot showed that GOBP2 gene expressed specifically in the antenna of Spodoptera exigua, and the expression level is nearly equal in the antenna of male and female moths. The sequence was deposited in GenBank/EMBL and the accession number is AJ294809.