title: Polymorphism of the ovine calpastatin gene.
abstract: Calpastatin is a specific inhibitor of calpains and has been implicated in the regulation of beef tenderization. Variation in the ovine calpastatin gene (CAST) was investigated by amplification of a fragment containing the entire exon 6 using polymerase chain reaction (PCR), followed by single-strand conformational polymorphism (PCR-SSCP) analysis and DNA sequencing. Five novel SSCP patterns, representing five different sequences, were identified. Either one or two different sequences were detected in individual sheep and all the sequences identified shared high homology to the published ovine and bovine CAST sequences, suggesting that these sequences represent allelic variants of the ovine CAST gene. Sequence analysis revealed a non-synonymous amino acid variation in exon 6, which would result in a Gln/Leu substitution in Domain L of the mature protein. Considerable variation was detected in an intron region close to the acceptor splice site, with both sequence variation and length variation being observed in this region. Variation detected here might have an impact on both the function and expression of ovine calpastatin.
authors.affiliation: Gene-Marker Laboratory, Cell Biology Group, Agriculture and Life Sciences Division, PO Box 84, Lincoln University, Lincoln, New Zealand. zhouh@lincoln.ac.nz
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: J G H
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Hickford
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gong
mesh_terms: D000483:Alleles; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002135:Calcium-Binding Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018807:Polymorphism, Single-Stranded Conformational; D017385:Sequence Homology; D012756:Sheep / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D002135:Calcium-Binding Proteins; C033668:calpastatin