Comparative analysis on the structural features of the 5' flanking region of kappa-casein genes from six different species

• Published in: Genetics selection evolution (Paris) Vol. 34; no. 1; pp. 117 - 128
• Main Authors: Gerencser, A. ((Agricultural Biotechnology Center, Godollo (Hongrie). Department of Animal Biology)), Barta, E, Boa, S, Kastanis, P, Bosze, Z, Bruce, C, Whitelaw, A
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: France BioMed Central Ltd 01-01-2002; BioMed Central; BMC
• Subjects: 5' Flanking Region; 5' regulatory region; Animals; Binding Sites; CASEIN; CASEINA; CASEINE; Caseins - genetics; Cattle; CONEJO (ORYCTOLAGUS); Consensus Sequence; Conserved Sequence; FACTEUR DE TRANSCRIPTION; FACTORES DE TRANSCRIPCION; GENE; GENES; GENETIC POLYMORPHISM; Goats; Humans; LAPIN (ORYCTOLAGUS); MICE; Molecular Sequence Data; NUCLEOTIDE SEQUENCE; Phylogeny; POLIMORFISMO GENETICO; POLYMORPHISME GENETIQUE; Promoter Regions, Genetic; RABBITS; RATON; repetitive elements; SECUENCIA NUCLEOTIDICA; Sequence Alignment; Sequence Analysis, DNA; SEQUENCE NUCLEOTIDIQUE; Sheep; SOURIS; transcription factor binding sites; TRANSCRIPTION FACTORS; Transcription Factors - metabolism; κ-casein
• ISSN: 0999-193X; 1297-9686; 1297-9686
• DOI: 10.1186/1297-9686-34-1-117

Kappa-casein plays an essential role in the formation, stabilisation and aggregation of milk micelles. Control of Kappa-casein expression reflects this essential role, although an understanding of the mechanisms involved lags behind that of the other milk protein genes. We determined the 5'-flanking sequences for the murine, rabbit and human Kappa-casein genes and compared them to the published ruminant sequences. The most conserved region was not the proximal promoter region but an approximately 400 by long region centred 800 by upstream of the TATA box. This region contained two highly conserved MGF/STAT5 sites with common spacing relative to each other. In this region, six conserved short stretches of similarity were also found which did not correspond to known transcription factor consensus sites. On the contrary to ruminant and human 5' regulatory sequences, the rabbit and murine 5'-flanking regions did not harbour any kind of repetitive elements. We generated a phylogenetic tree of the six species based on multiple alignment of the Kappa-casein sequences. This study identified conserved candidate transcriptional regulatory elements within the Kappa-casein gene promoter