Cloning,Bioinformatics and Expression Pattern Analysis of Buffalo MC1R Gene

The aim of this study was to clone and analyze the expression pattern of buffalo MC1R gene.A pair of specific primers was designed according bovine MC1R sequence (GenBank accession No.:JN123363.1),with genome DNA of swamp buffalo,White swamp buffalo,Murrah buffalo and Yellow cattle as template,MC1R was amplified by PCR.Then relative expression level of MC1R gene of swamp buffalo,White swamp buffalo,Murrah buffalo and Yellow cattle was analyzed using QRT-PCR,and protein expression was detected by Western blotting method.The results showed that the 954 bp coding region of buffalo MC1R gene was successfully cloned and sequenced,which code for 317 amino acids.The MC1R gene nucleotide sequences and amino acid sequences of swamp buffalo,White swamp buffalo,Murrah buffalo and Yellow cattle were highly conserved.Five polymorphic sites were found between White swamp buffalo and swamp buffalo of MC1R gene,including 476 T→C,618 G→C,881 G→A,930 G→A and 931 A→G,which caused three nonsynonymous mutation sites of Phe159Ser,Glu310Ala and Asp294Ala.The QRT-PCR result showed that relative expressions of MC1R gene of Murrah buffalo,swamp buffalo and Yellow cattle were significant higher than that of White swamp buffalo (P<0.05).The Western blotting results revealed that MC1R protein expression level in swamp buffalo was higher than that of White swamp buffalo.In conclusion,there were amino acids mutation in White swamp buffalo MC1R gene,and MC1R gene relative expression of White swamp buffalo was lower than that of other buffalo,which was the main reason of lacking of melanin production in White swamp buffalo.