Yang Guo, Zhou Huitong, Wang Ruoyu, Hickford Jon
Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China; Gene-Marker Laboratory, Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, P.O. Box 84, Lincoln University, Lincoln 7647, New Zealand.
Gene-Marker Laboratory, Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, P.O. Box 84, Lincoln University, Lincoln 7647, New Zealand.
Gene. 2015 Aug 10;567(2):251-4. doi: 10.1016/j.gene.2015.05.021. Epub 2015 May 9.
The 5'AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) is a heterotrimeric enzyme that controls cellular energy homeostasis in response to environmental or nutritional stress. The PRKAG3 gene (PRKAG3) encodes the γ3 subunit of the AMPK. Variation in this gene has been found to be associated with meat quality traits in pigs. In this study, we used polymerase chain reaction-single stranded conformational polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) to investigate variation in exon 3 and exons 4-6 of ovine PRKAG3. In 160 New Zealand Suffolk sheep, two variant sequences (named a and b) were identified in the exon 3 region of the gene and three variant sequences (named A, B and C) were identified in the exon 4-6 region of the gene, respectively. A total of three nucleotide substitutions were revealed and these were located in intron 4, exon 4 and intron 5, respectively. The nucleotide substitution identified in the exon 4 (g.2656 C>T) could nominally lead to an amino acid substitution of tryptophan to arginine at position 230 (R230W) in ovine PRKAG3. In comparison with the PRKAG3 amino acid sequences in other species, this R230W substitution appeared to occur only in sheep. This is the first report of genetic variation in ovine PRKAG3, and the variation found in this study could be functionally important for AMPK activity, which in turn may affect meat quality traits in sheep.
