Cloning and Bioinformatics Analysis of 4 Alternative Splice Variants of MEF2A Gene in Mashen Pig

This study was aimed to clone the different splicing variants of myocyte enhancer factor 2A (MEF2A) gene in Mashen pig. According to the prediction results of the alternative splicing in the RNA-Seq sequencing, the coding region of MEF2A gene exons 5-8 were amplified. We analyzed the sequence characteristics of different splicing variants of MEF2A gene in Mashen pig, predicted conservative structure domain, constructed phylogenetic tree and compared the homology of MEF2A amino acid in different species by bioinformatics softwares. The results showed that 4 alternative splice variants of MEF2A gene were obtained. The exons 5-8 of MEF2A1 spliced normally. MEF2A2 lacked the exon 5, and the 5'end of exon 6 was 138 bp longer, the 3'end of exon 7 was 102 bp longer. MEF2A3 lacked exon 5, and the 5'end of exon 6 was 138 bp longer. The 3'end of MEF2A4 exon 7 of was 102 bp longer. The protein, encoded by inserted 138 bp sequence, contained a conserved domain-HJURP_C, which was the result of MEF2A participating in hepatocyte fibrosis. The MEF2A1, MEF2A4 and MEF2A1 of pig submitted in GenBank (accession No.NP_001090890.1) belonged to a subgroup, homology up to 98.9%. The MEF2A2, MEF2A3 and MEF2A2 of pig submitted in GenBank (accession No.NP_001093168.1) belonged to a subgroup, the homology was 98.2% and 98.9%, respectively. The successful cloning of 4 alternative splice variants of MEF2A gene laid the foundation for further study on the function of MEF2A protein.