Short communication: Translational efficiency of casein transcripts in Mediterranean river buffalo.
Buffalo milk is characterized by the presence of all 4 casein fractions (α(S1), β, α(S2), and κ) encoded by the 4 tightly linked autosomal genes (CSN1S1, CSN2, CSN1S2, and CSN3, respectively). In the present paper, we report for the first time a quantitative characterization of buffalo casein transcripts and show that the 4 genes are not transcribed and translated with the same efficiency. In particular, the analysis of individual milk samples obtained from 9 Mediterranean river buffaloes showed that the most abundant casein fractions were β (53.45%) and α(S1) (20.61%), followed by α(S2) and κ, at 14.28 and 11.66%, respectively. Quantification of the corresponding mRNA showed that the percentage of transcripts of the 4 caseins was 16.48, 23.18, 55.87, and 4.47% for α(S1), β, α(S2), and κ, respectively. Translation efficiency was 0.25 for CSN1S2, 1.31 for CSN1S1, 2.39 for CSN2, and 2.69 for the CSN3 transcripts, respectively. A comparison of nucleotide sequences with the Kozak consensus sequence was also carried out to investigate if the mRNA sequences might be responsible for the observed differences.
Dipartimento di Scienze del Suolo, della Pianta, dell'Ambiente e delle Produzioni Animali, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Portici, Italy. giacosen@unina.it
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Cosenza
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Pauciullo
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Coletta
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Di Francia
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Feligini
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Gallo
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Di Berardino
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Ramunno
D000818:Animals; D002020:Buffaloes / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D002364:Caseins / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D008892:Milk / Q000737:chemistry*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D016415:Sequence Alignment
D002364:Caseins