Molecular Cloning of the Gene and Its Expression in Response to Feeding Artificial Diets to Mandarin Fish ().

: Stearoyl-coenzyme A desaturase 1 (SCD1) plays a crucial role in fatty acid metabolism. However, its roles in the feeding habit transformation of mandarin fish () remain largely unknown. Juvenile mandarin fish (10.37 ± 0.54)g were trained to feed on an artificial diet and then divided into artificial diet feeders and nonfeeders according to their feed preference. Afterwards, the gene of mandarin fish () was identified and characterized, and its transcription difference was determined between fed live artificial diets and those fed prey fish. Our results show that coding sequence is 1002 bp long, encoding 333 amino acids. The assumed -SCD1 protein lacks a signal peptide, and it contains 1 N-linked glycosylation site, 24 phosphorylation sites, 4 transmembrane structures, and 3 conserved histidine elements. We found that -SCD1 exhibits a high similarity with its counterparts in other fish by multiple alignments and phylogenetic analysis. The expression level of was detected with different expression levels in all tested tissues between male and female individuals fed either live prey fish or artificial diets. In particular, the expression level was the highest in the liver of both male and female mandarin fish fed artificial diets, indicating that genes may be associated with feed adaption of mandarin fish. Taken together, our findings offer novel perspectives on the potential roles of in specific domestication, and they provide valuable genetic information on feeding habits for the domestication of mandarin fish.