Molecular cloning and variant analysis of the gene in goose ().

1. The thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor (TSHR) is a glycoprotein hormone receptor which has a pivotal role in metabolic regulation and photoperiod control during reproduction in birds and mammals. However, the molecular characterisation of in goose is unknown. 2. The goose cDNA (TSHR-1) is 2334 bp in length and encodes a protein of 763 amino acids. This trial identified another three novel splice variants of goose (lacking the exon 3 in TSHR-1 transcript), lacking the exon 6 in the transcript) and (lacking 12 bp of exon 8 and the entire exon 9 in the transcript). 3. Bioinformatics analysis indicated that all the deduced amino acid sequences contained seven putative transmembrane domains, and the TSHR-3 protein lacked one potential N-linked glycosylation site (N-E-S) compared to the other three deduced proteins. 4. A phylogenetic tree based on amino acid sequences showed that the goose TSHR protein was closely related to those of other avian species, especially duck and chickens. 5. One microsatellite and three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified. For the c1109A/G locus, AA and GA genotypes were found in the Zhedong-White goose population, GG and GA genotypes were detected in the Landes goose population, but the AA genotype was only detected in the other four goose populations. 6. All the information derived from this study can facilitate further studies on the functions of the goose gene.