Molecular evolution of the leptin exon 3 in some species of the family Canidae.

The structure of the leptin gene seems to be well conserved. The polymorphism of this gene in four species belonging to the Canidae family (the dog (Canis familiaris)--16 different breeds, the Chinese racoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides procyonoides), the red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and the arctic fox (Alopex lagopus)) were studied with the use of single strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and DNA sequencing techniques. For exon 2, all species presented the same SSCP pattern, while in exon 3 some differences were found. DNA sequencing of exon 3 revealed the presence of six nucleotide substitutions, differentiating the studied species. Three of them cause amino acid substitutions as well. For all dog breeds studied, SSCP patterns were identical.