Semi-quantitative RT-PCR and Bioinformatics Analysis of sheep BTG1 gene
ZHANG Ju, DU Li-Xin*, LI Hong-Bin, WEI Cai-Hong
National Center for Molecular Genetics and Breeding of Animal,Institute of Animal Sciences, Chinese Academy of Agriculture Sciences, Beijing 100193,China
BTG1 (B-cell translocation gene 1) is a member of the BTG/TOB gene family, which plays a role in the proliferation and differentiation in animal cells. Based on blast searches with the mRNA sequence of cattle BTG1 and the sheep-EST databases, a 1 358 bp cDNA fragment of BTG1 gene (GenBank accession No. FJ444829 ) was first amplified by RT-PCR. The sheep BTG1 contains a 516 bp ORF encoding 171 amino acids. Semi-quantitative PCR revealed that the BTG1 was similarly expressed in ten types of tissues studied of both Small Tailed Han sheep and Dorset sheep breeds. Homology analysis showed that the amino acid sequences of sheep BTG1 was highly homologous to other species, containing the BTG/TOB conserved domains. By homologous modeling, the predicted structure of BTG1 was similar other members of BTG/TOB with one transmembrane domain, eight phosphorylation sites, including one of specific protein kinase.