Molecular Cloning of a cDNA Encoding a Ferritin Subunit from the Spider, Araneus ventricosus

Molecular Cloning of a cDNA Encoding a Ferritin Subunit from the Spider, Araneus ventricosus

We report for the first time the cDNA sequence encoding a ferritin subunit from the spiders Araneus ventricosus. The complete cDNA sequence of A. ventricosus ferritin subunit comprised 516 bp with 172 amino acid residues. The A. ventricosus ferritin subunit cDNA contained a conserved iron responsive element sequence in the 5 untranslated region. An alignment of the deduced protein sequence of the A. ventricosus ferritin subunit gene to that of other heavy chain ferritin molecules showed that A. ventricosus ferritin subunit is most similar to the great pond snail, Lymnaea stagnalis, ferritin with 70.2% of protein sequence identity.