Diseases caused by viruses are the greatest challenge to worldwide shrimp aquaculture. Ran gene was an important antiviral gene identified from shrimp and its mRNA level was up-regulated in response to viral infection. In this investigation, a Ran isoform gene (named Ran-iso) cDNA was cloned from shrimp, Marsupenaeus japonicus. The full-length cDNA of Ran-iso was 1286 bp, including a 5'-terminal untranslated region (UTR) of 272 bp, 3'-terminal UTR of 366 bp and an open reading frame (ORF) of 648 bp encoding a polypeptide of 215 amino acids. The...