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Characterization of BGTG‐1, a tergal gland‐secreted alpha‐amylase, from the German cockroach, Blattella germanica (L.)

The protein fraction of the German cockroach, Blattella germanica (L.), tergal gland secretion was examined. SDS–PAGE separation of proteins present in B. germanica tergal gland secretion revealed a tergal gland‐secreted protein, BGTG‐1, at ≈ 63 kDa. BGTG‐1 first appeared in tergal gland secretion at 2 days postimaginal moult and the amount of protein observed increased through day 5. A 2051 bp cDNA sequence, bgtg‐1, was obtained by RACE polymerase chain reaction and contains a 1494 bp ORF encoding a predicted protein of 498 amino acids. In a Northern hybridization experiment using total RNA from B. germanica tergal gland tissue, a 32P‐labelled bgtg‐1 probe hybridized to an RNA ≈ 2000 bp and confirmed the 2051 bp cDNA size obtained by RACE PCR. Using the BLASTx sequence similarity search tool, the top match to the bgtg‐1 ORF was found to be an α‐amylase from Drosophila kikkawai (e‐value = 1 × 10−178). Alignment of the bgtg‐1 deduced protein sequence with α‐amylases from fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, honey bee, Apis mellifera (L.) and yellow mealworm, Tenebrio molitor (L.), revealed conserved residues throughout the ORF and sequence identities ranging from 58.4 to 58.2%. Using a gel‐based assay, degradation of starch by native BGTG‐1 was demonstrated in vitro and we propose that BGTG‐1 may be involved in processing phagostimulatory sugars present in B. germanica tergal gland secretion.