Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2014 Sep 15:3:528.
doi: 10.1186/2193-1801-3-528. eCollection 2014.

The sheep KAP8-2 gene, a new KAP8 family member that is absent in humans

Hua Gong  1 , Huitong Zhou  1 , Jolon M Dyer  2 , Jon Gh Hickford  1
Affiliations

The sheep KAP8-2 gene, a new KAP8 family member that is absent in humans

Hua Gong et al. Springerplus. .

Abstract

The keratin-associated proteins (KAPs) are fundamental components of hair and wool fibres, and are believed to in part be responsible for some of the properties of these fibres. KAPs can be divided into three groups: the high sulphur (HS) KAPs, the ultra-high sulphur (UHS) KAPs and the high glycine-tyrosine (HGT) KAPs. KAP8 is a HGT-KAP family and was believed to be coded for by a single gene in both humans and sheep. However, the recent identification of a KAP8-2 gene in goats led us to investigate whether a KAP8-2 gene exists in sheep. A BLAST search of the Ovine Genome Assembly v2.0 using the coding sequence of caprine KRTAP8-2 identified a homologous region on sheep chromosome 1 (OAR1:123005473_123005664; E = e(-101)). This region was clustered with a number of previously identified KAP genes including (in order from the centromere) KRTAP11-1, KRTAP7-1, KRTAP8-1, KRTAP6-2, KRTAP6-1, KRTAP13-3 and KRTAP24-1. PCR-SSCP analysis of the notional gene revealed two dissimilar PCR-SSCP banding patterns, representing two DNA sequences. A single nucleotide difference 21 bp upstream of the TATA box was identified. The two sequences did not have great homology with known ovine KRTAP sequences, but high sequence identity was found with KRTAP8-2 from goats and reindeer. These results suggest that sheep possess a KAP8-2 gene and that this gene is polymorphic. The notional KAP8-2 protein is comprised of 63 amino acid residues and is rich in glycine and tyrosine, but has a low cysteine content. In contrast to other HGT-KAPs, ovine KAP8-2 contains more acidic amino acid residues, and this would likely result in a lower isoelectric point (pI) of 6.3.

Keywords: KAP8-2 gene (KRTAP8-2); PCR-SSCP; Sheep; Variation.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Location of the putative KRTAP8-2 (gene name boxed) together with seven other KRTAPs on sheep chromosome 1. The coding regions of individual KRTAPs are shown, with the nucleotide positions refer to Ovine Genome Assembly v2.0 (http://www.livestockgenomics.csiro.au/sheep). Arrows represent the direction of transcriptions.
Figure 2
Figure 2
PCR-SSCP of ovine KRTAP8-2 . Two unique PCR-SSCP patterns representing two variant sequences are shown.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Beh KJ, Callaghan MJ, Leish Z, Hulme DJ, Lenane I, Maddox JF. A genome scan for QTL affecting fleece and wool traits in Merino sheep. Wool Tech Sheep Bree. 2001;49:88–97.
    1. Bowden PE, Stark HJ, Breitkreutz D, Fusenig NE. Expression and modification of keratins during terminal differentiation of mammalian epidermis. Curr Top Dev Bio. 1987;22:35–68. doi: 10.1016/S0070-2153(08)60098-8. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Byun SO, Fang Q, Zhou H, Hickford JGH. An effective method for silver-staining DNA in large numbers of polyacrylamide gels. Anal Biochem. 2009;385:174–175. doi: 10.1016/j.ab.2008.10.024. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Fratini A, Powell BC, Rogers GE. Sequence, expression, and evolutionary conservation of a gene encoding a glycine tyrosine-rich keratin-associated protein of hair. J Biol Chem. 1993;268:4511–4518. - PubMed
    1. Gillespie JM. The proteins of hair and other hard α-keratins. In: Goldman RD, Steinert PM, editors. Cellular and Molecular Biology of Intermediate Filaments. New York: Plenum; 1990. pp. 95–128.

LinkOut - more resources