Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Justus Liebig University of Giessen, Ludwigstrasse 21, 35390, Giessen, Germany.
Vet Res. 2018 Apr 19;49(1):36. doi: 10.1186/s13567-018-0533-y.
Maedi-visna, a disease caused by small ruminant lentiviruses (SRLVs), is present in sheep from many countries, also including Germany. An amino acid substitution (E/K) at position 35 of the transmembrane protein 154 (TMEM154) as well as a deletion in the chemokine (C-C motif) receptor type 5 gene (CCR5) were reported to be associated with the serological MV status and/or the SRLV provirus concentration in North American sheep populations. The aim of this study was to test if those two gene variants might be useful markers for MV susceptibility in Germany. For this purpose, more than 500 sheep from 17 serologically MV positive German sheep flocks with different breed backgrounds were genotyped applying PCR-based methods. Both, crosstab and non-parametric analyses showed significant associations of the amino acid substitution at position 35 of TMEM154 with the serological MV status (cut-off-based classification) and the median MV ELISA S/P value in all samples and in two of the four analyzed breed subsets. The deletion in the CCR5 promoter did not show a consistent association with serological MV status or median ELISA S/P value. It can be concluded that the amino acid substitution at position 35 of TMEM154 is a promising marker for breeding towards a lower number of serologically MV positive sheep in German flocks, at least in flocks of the Texel breed, while this remains questionable for the deletion in the CCR5 promoter. The findings of this study still need to be verified in additional sheep breeds.
绵羊进行性肺炎/粘膜病，由小反刍兽瘟病毒（SRLV）引起，存在于许多国家的绵羊中，也包括德国。有报道称，跨膜蛋白 154（TMEM154）第 35 位氨基酸取代（E/K）以及趋化因子（C-C 基序）受体 5 基因（CCR5）缺失与北美绵羊群体的血清 MV 状态和/或 SRLV 前病毒浓度有关。本研究旨在检验这两个基因变异是否可作为德国绵羊 MV 易感性的有用标记。为此，应用基于 PCR 的方法对来自 17 个具有不同品种背景的血清学 MV 阳性德国绵羊群的 500 多只绵羊进行了基因分型。交叉表和非参数分析均表明，TMEM154 第 35 位氨基酸取代与血清学 MV 状态（基于临界值的分类）以及所有样本和四个分析品种亚组中的两个的中位数 MV ELISA S/P 值之间存在显著关联。CCR5 启动子缺失与血清学 MV 状态或中位数 ELISA S/P 值之间没有一致的关联。可以得出结论，TMEM154 第 35 位氨基酸取代是德国羊群中培育出较少血清学 MV 阳性绵羊的有前途的标记，至少在 Texel 品种的羊群中如此，而 CCR5 启动子缺失则存在疑问。本研究的结果仍需要在其他绵羊品种中进行验证。
