Abstract: To study the molecular response mechanisms of copepod to nickel stress, a suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) cDNA library of Pseudodiaptomous annandalei under nickel stress was constructed by using SSH technique, and a total of 140 clones were randomly picked from the growing colonies and identified by PCR. The recombinant rate of the library was 98.6%, and the volume of the library was 1.12×10⁶ cfu. After the recombinant plasmids were sequenced, a partial cDNA fragment of ferritin was recognized based on BLAST searches in NCBI, with a size of 859 bp and  continuously encoding 170 amino acid residues. The semi-quantitative PCR results showed that the ferritin cDNA under 24 h nickel stress was distinctly up-regulated. The successful construction of the SSH library and the obtaining of ferritin cDNA fragment would supply basis for the further study of the molecular response mechanisms of copepod to nickel stress.

Key words: nickel, Pseudodiaptomous annandalei, suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH), ferritin.