A putative tetrasporophyte-specific gene,designated as SSH466(GenBank accession No. DQ019223) ,was one of the genes identified in this work using suppression subtractive hybridization(SSH) method in Gracilaria lemaneiformis. The full length of the gene was obtained using SMART RACE strategy. Sequence analysis revealed that the gene had 1 019 nucleotides,including an open reading frame of 498 nucleotides encoding 166 amino acid residues,158 nucleotides of 5' untranslated region and 363 nucleotides of 3' non-coding region. Protein motif and secondary structure prediction showed that there existed a transmembrane domain with a unique β-sheet. Thus,SSH466 protein might be a cross-membrane protein. Sequence homology search in the public GenBank databases did not reveal any significant match with SSH466. Virtual Northern blot analysis confirmed that it was a tetrasporophyte-specific gene.
