Differential Expression of CCAAT/Enhancer Binding Protein α(C/EBPα) and Lipoprotein Lipase(LPL) Genes in Tail Adipose Tissues of Sheep (Ovis aries) with Different Types of Tail
Abstract：In order to discover the effect of CCAAT/enhancer binding protein α (C/EBPα) and lipoprotein lipase (LPL) genes expression in tail fat adipose tissues among different types of sheep tails, primers were designed based on the full length of bovine (Bos taurus) C/EBPα gene (GenBank A: NM_176784.2). RT-PCR was used to amplify the C/EBPα gene, and bioinformatics methods were used to analyze the characteristics of genetic sequence and protein. Quantitative Real-time PCR and Western blot were used to evaluate the expression level of C/EBPα and LPL in tail adipose tissues among 5 sheep(Ovis aries) breeds (Shannbei Merino (long thin-tail), Tong sheep (long/short fat-tail), Tibetan sheep (short thin-tail), Tan sheep (long fat-tail) and Kazak sheep (hip fat-tail)) aged at 9-month-old, and 18 individuals were involoved. The results showed that the coding region of C/EBPα(GenBank No. : KF830871) was 1 062 bp in full length, encoding 353 amino acids, and the isoelectric point of the protein was 7.25, and the molecular weight was 37.15 kD, sharing 99% similar nucleotides with bovine sequences and its protein contained a typical leucine zipper domain. The expression trends of the protein and mRNA level of C/EBPα and LPL were roughly the same. Both C/EBPα and LPL highly expressed in fat-tailed (Tong sheep, Tan sheep) and hip fat-tailed (Kazak sheep) sheep, while lower expressed in thin-tailed (Shannbei Merino, Tibetan sheep) breeds. In the same breed, the mRNA and the protein expression levels of C/EBPα and LPL in adipose tissues of long fat-tail in Tong sheep were significantly higher than those of short fat-tail (P＜0.05). In this study, we successfully cloned sheep C/EBPα gene and the expression levels of C/EBPα and LPL genes had significant correlations with fat deposition in tail tissues of sheep. Our results provide the basic information for further exploring the mechanism of blocking excessive deposition of tail fat, and realizing the purpose that not only saving the cost of feeding, but also making full use of the excellent productivity of the sheep population.
