A new family of cytochrome P450 genes (CYP41) from the cattle tick, Boophilus microplus

Abstract

We isolated and sequenced a cytochrome P450 (CYP) gene that is sufficiently different from other CYP genes that a new CYP family, CYP41 was created. CYP41 encodes a protein of 518 residues and is most similar to genes from the family CYP3; it is 36% identical to CYP3A2 and 34% identical to CYP3A28. We hypothesise that CYP41 encodes an enzyme that metabolizes xenobiotic compounds i.e. compounds that are foreign to the cattle tick. The phylogenetic position of CYP41 could not be resolved because of the high level of sequence divergence at both the nucleotide and amino acid levels.