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Identification of the prion-related protein gene (PRNT) sequences in various species of the Cervidae family

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Abstract

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is caused by abnormal deleterious prion protein (PrPSc), and transmissible spongiform encephalopathy occurs in the Cervidae family. In recent studies, the susceptibility of prion disease has been affected by polymorphisms of the prion gene family. However, the study of the prion-related protein gene (PRNT) is rare, and the DNA sequence of this gene was not fully reported in all Cervidae families. In the present study, we amplified and first identified PRNT DNA sequences in the Cervidae family, including red deer, elk, sika deer and Korean water deer, using polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We aligned nucleotide sequences of the PRNT gene and the amino acid sequences of prion-related protein (Prt) protein among several species. In addition, we performed phylogenetic analysis to measure the evolutionary relationships of the PRNT gene in the Cervidae family. Furthermore, we performed homology modeling of the Prt protein using SWISS-MODEL and compared the structure of Prt protein between sheep and the Cervidae family using the Swiss-PdbViewer program. We obtained much longer PRNT sequences of red deer compared to the PRNT gene sequence registered in GenBank. Korean water deer denoted more close evolutionary distances with goats and cattle than the Cervidae family. We found 6 Cervidae family-specific amino acids by the alignment of Prt amino acid sequences. There are significantly different distributions of hydrogen bonds and the atomic distance of the N-terminal tail and C-terminal tail between sheep and the Cervidae family. We also detected the mRNA expression of PRNT gene in 3 tissues investigated. To our knowledge, this report is the first genetic study of the PRNT gene in the Cervidae family.

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Acknowledgements

Yong-Chan Kim, Sae-Young Won and Min-Ju Jeong were supported by the BK21 Plus Program in the Department of Bioactive Material Sciences. This research was supported by the Basic Science Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (2018R1D1A1B07048711). This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (2017R1A6A1A03015876). This research was supported by APQA, Ministry for Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (B-1543085-2018-20-0202).

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  1. In-Soon Roh and Yong-Chan Kim have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Reference Laboratory for CWD, Foreign Animal Disease Division, Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency, Gimcheon, 39660, Republic of Korea

    In-Soon Roh, Hyo-Jin Kim, Hae-Eun Kang & Hyun-Joo Sohn

  2. Korea Zoonosis Research Institute, Jeonbuk National University, 820-120, Hana-ro, Iksan, Jeonbuk, 54531, Republic of Korea

    Yong-Chan Kim, Sae-Young Won, Min-Ju Jeong & Byung-Hoon Jeong

  3. Department of Bioactive Material Sciences, Jeonbuk National University, Jeonju, 54896, Republic of Korea

    Yong-Chan Kim, Sae-Young Won, Min-Ju Jeong & Byung-Hoon Jeong

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  1. In-Soon Roh
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Contributions

ISR, YCK, HEK, HJS and BHJ conceived and designed the experiment. ISR, YCK, HJK, SYW and MJJ performed the experiments. ISR, YCK, HJK, SYW, MJJ, HEK, HJS and BHJ the data. ISR, YCK, HEK, HJS and BHJ wrote the paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hyun-Joo Sohn or Byung-Hoon Jeong.

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Roh, IS., Kim, YC., Kim, HJ. et al. Identification of the prion-related protein gene (PRNT) sequences in various species of the Cervidae family. Mol Biol Rep 47, 6155–6164 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11033-020-05697-9

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