Sequence conservation of the 12D3 gene in Mexican isolates of Babesia bovis.

The 12D3 antigen present in Babesia bovis has been evaluated as a recombinant vaccine candidate and the 12d3 coding sequence has been reported for an Australian and an USA (Texas) isolate of B. bovis. However, no approach has been conducted to perform analysis of 12d3 sequence conservation on a larger number of B. bovis isolates. This could provide important information to determine whether a recombinant vaccine containing this antigen could be widely used. This study reports the cloning and sequencing analysis of the 12d3 coding region in 20 different B. bovis isolates collected from various geographical regions in the tropics and subtropics of Mexico. Comparative analysis of the consensus nucleotide sequences obtained for each isolate revealed a high degree of conservation (94-99% sequence identity) among the 12d3 alleles present in the Mexican isolates when compared with the 12d3 ORF sequences from the Texan (T2Bo) B. bovis isolate. Similarly, BLASTX sequence homology search showed a high percent identity (93-99%) of the deduced amino acid 12D3 sequence as compared with the T2Bo isolate sequence. The high level of sequence conservation in 12d3 among the 20 B. bovis isolates collected from geographically distant locations in Mexico suggests that there exists a minimal bovine-host immunological pressure which could be translated into antigenic diversity or variation, and most probably this is reflected in the non-inmunodominant characteristic of the 12D3 antigen as it has been previously described in the literature. 12D3 antigen can be considered as a viable candidate for inclusion in a recombinant vaccine for cattle babesiosis caused by B. bovis in Mexico.