Zhang Long, Jie Hang, Xiao Yingping, Zhou Caiquan, Lyu Wentao, Bai Wenke
Institute of Ecology, Key Laboratory of Southwest China Wildlife Resources Conservation (Ministry of Education), China West Normal University, Nanchong 637009, China.
Sichuan Wildlife Rehabilitation and Breeding Research Center, China West Normal University, Nanchong 637009, China.
Animals (Basel). 2019 Jul 24;9(8):481. doi: 10.3390/ani9080481.
The forest musk deer () is a small-sized artiodactyl species famous for the musk secreted by adult males. In the captive population, this species is under the threat of infection diseases, which greatly limits the increase of individual numbers. In the present study, we computationally analyzed the repertoire of the cathelicidin (CATHL) family from the genome of forest musk deer and investigated their expression pattern by real-time PCR. Our results showed that the entire genome of forest musk deer encodes eight cathelicidins, including six functional genes and two pseudogenes. Phylogenetic analyses further revealed that all forest musk deer cathelicidin members have emerged before the split of the forest musk deer and cattle and that forest musk deer and are orthologous with two cattle pseudogenes. In addition, the gene expression results showed that the six functional genes are not only abundantly expressed in the spleen and lung, but are also differently expressed in response to abscesses, which suggests that forest musk deer cathelicidins may be involved in infections. Taken together, identification and characterization of the forest musk deer cathelicidins provide fundamental data for further investigating their evolutionary process and biological functions.
林麝（Moschus berezovskii）是一种小型偶蹄目物种，以成年雄性分泌的麝香而闻名。在圈养种群中，该物种受到传染病的威胁，这极大地限制了个体数量的增加。在本研究中，我们通过计算分析了林麝基因组中cathelicidin（CATHL）家族的组成，并通过实时PCR研究了它们的表达模式。我们的结果表明，林麝的整个基因组编码8种cathelicidin，包括6个功能基因和2个假基因。系统发育分析进一步表明，所有林麝cathelicidin成员在林麝与牛分化之前就已出现，并且林麝CATHL3和CATHL4与两个牛假基因是直系同源的。此外，基因表达结果表明，这6个功能基因不仅在脾脏和肺中大量表达，而且在脓肿反应中表达也有所不同，这表明林麝cathelicidin可能参与感染过程。综上所述，林麝cathelicidin的鉴定和表征为进一步研究其进化过程和生物学功能提供了基础数据。
