State Key Laboratory for Managing Biotic and Chemical Threats to the Quality and Safety of Agro-products, Institute of Quality and Standard for Agro-products, Zhejiang Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hangzhou, 310021, China.
Key Laboratory of Southwest China Wildlife Resources Conservation (Ministry of Education), China West Normal University, Nanchong, 637009, China.
Poult Sci. 2020 Jun;99(6):2983-2991. doi: 10.1016/j.psj.2020.03.021. Epub 2020 Apr 15.
Cathelicidins represent a major group of host defense peptides (HDPs) that share a highly conserved cathelin-like domain. In birds, this gene family has been identified in many species. However, no information was available in the goose until now. In this study, we present the molecular characterization of 2 goose cathelicidin genes, namely goose CATH2 and goose CATH3, for the first time. The complete cDNA of goose CATH2 and goose CATH3 were 571 bp and 573 bp in length, respectively, and the deduced amino acid sequences exhibited high similarity with other avian cathelicidins. Furthermore, evolutionary analyses indicated that all known cathelicidins form 3 distinct clusters from reptiles, while the oldest cathelicidin member, which is known as CATHB1, is very likely absent in the goose genome. Meanwhile, highly expressed goose CATH2 and goose CATH3 were also observed in primary and secondary lymphoid tissues, same as the observations in other avian species. In addition, chemically synthesized mature peptides of the 2 cathelicidins exerted optimal antimicrobial abilities to a range of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria. The discovery and characterization of goose cathelicidins complete the knowledge for goose HDPs and might contribute to understanding the evolution of avian cathelicidins as well as for the development of antibacterial agents.
抗菌肽是宿主防御肽（HDPs）的主要家族之一，它们具有高度保守的抗菌肽样结构域。在鸟类中，该基因家族已在许多物种中被鉴定出来。然而，在此之前，鹅中没有相关信息。在本研究中，我们首次对 2 种鹅抗菌肽基因，即鹅 CATH2 和鹅 CATH3，进行了分子特征分析。鹅 CATH2 和鹅 CATH3 的完整 cDNA 分别长 571bp 和 573bp，推导的氨基酸序列与其他禽类抗菌肽具有高度相似性。此外，进化分析表明，所有已知的抗菌肽在进化上形成了 3 个从爬行动物分化而来的簇，而最古老的抗菌肽成员 CATHB1 很可能不存在于鹅基因组中。同时，在初级和次级淋巴组织中也观察到高度表达的鹅 CATH2 和鹅 CATH3，这与其他禽类物种的观察结果一致。此外，2 种抗菌肽的化学合成成熟肽对一系列革兰氏阴性菌和革兰氏阳性菌具有最佳的抗菌能力。鹅抗菌肽的发现和特征分析完善了鹅 HDPs 的知识体系，有助于理解禽类抗菌肽的进化以及抗菌剂的开发。
