Abstract

Prolactin is a versatile hormone with multiple activities, including a negative control on egg production. This study was conducted to genotype all the coding portions of the prl gene using PCR-SSCP-sequencing, and to investigate the effects of amino acid substitutions of the prl gene on the structure and function of prolactin in quails using in silico approach. Though all genotyped exons exerted homogenous PCR-SSCP patterns, a total of 12 novel SNPs were detected in the investigated exons, including three SNPs in exon-1, 8 SNPs in exon-2, and one SNP in exon-4. Three adjacent missense SNPs were detected in exon-2, namely H69P, T70P, and S71F. Computational tools indicated obvious deleterious effects of T70P, with less extent to H69P and S71F on prolactin functions and activity, which may lead to limited participation of this hormone in the negative control of egg production. In conclusion, the introduction of in silico prediction has suggested an alternative solution for the breeders to evaluate the effect of each witnessed nsSNP in protein structure and function. The current study suggests three nsSNPs, T70P, T70P, and S71F as strong candidates for the negative effect on prolactin biological activity with a consequent reversal positive effect on egg productivity traits.

摘要

催乳素是一种多功能激素，具有多种活性，包括对产蛋量的负面控制。进行该研究以基因型的所有编码部分PRL使用PCR-SSCP测序基因，并调查的氨基酸置换的影响PRL使用鹌鹑基因上催乳素的结构和功能，在硅片方法。尽管所有基因分型的外显子都表现出均质的 PCR-SSCP 模式，但在研究的外显子中总共检测到 12 个新的 SNP，包括外显子 1 中的 3 个 SNP、外显子 2 中的 8 个 SNP 和外显子 4 中的一个 SNP。在外显子 2 中检测到三个相邻的错义 SNP，即 H69P、T70P 和 S71F。计算工具表明 T70P 有明显的有害影响，H69P 和 S71F 对催乳素功能和活性的影响程度较小，这可能导致该激素在产蛋负控制中的参与有限。总之，引入in silico预测为育种者提供了一种替代解决方案，以评估每个见证的 nsSNP 对蛋白质结构和功能的影响。目前的研究表明，三个 nsSNP、T70P、T70P 和 S71F 是对催乳素生物活性产生负面影响的有力候选者，从而对产蛋量性状产生逆转积极影响。