Transcript variant of the porcine liver X receptor alpha (LXRα) expressed in the thymus and spleen

Pattanapong THADTHA 1), Hirohide UENISHI 2), Hiroki URATA 1), Mieko Ishikawa 1) and Yasuhiko WADA 1)

1) Faculty of Agriculture, Saga University, Saga, Japan.
2) Genome Research Department, National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, Tsukuba, Japan

ABSTRACT

The liver X receptor alpha (LXRα) is a ligand-inducible transcription factor that belongs to a member of the nuclear receptor superfamily. LXRα functions as a transcriptional regulator of several important genes involved in the metabolism of cholesterol, fatty acids, and glucose. We determined the nucleotide sequences of the porcine LXRα cDNA by using full-length cDNA clones derived from porcine cDNA libraries. Two porcine LXRα transcript variants that differed only in the 5′-untranslated region (5′-UTR) were identified, and designated as porcine LXRα-1 and LXRα-2. The length of the 5′-UTR of the porcine LXRα-1 is 183 bp, whereas that of LXRα-2 is 216 bp. Both transcripts have an identical 1344-bp putative protein-coding region that encodes 447 amino acids. The 38bp of 3’ side of the 5’-UTR is identical between LXRα-1 and LXRα-2. The LXRα-1 is similar to the mRNA of porcine LXRα (DQ059138). The 5’-UTR of LXRα-1 is 34bp longer than that of DQ059138. The 5’-UTR sequence of LXRα-1 and DQ059138 is similar to the sequence of the exon1 of the human LXRα gene and the mouse LXRα gene. The 54bp of the upstream region of the 5’-UTR of LXRα-2 is similar to the exon6 of human ACP2 gene. By using RT-PCR, the expression of the porcine LXRα-1 transcript was detected in the liver, kidney, small intestine, heart, muscle, thymus, spleen, and brain, whereas the porcine LXRα-2 transcript was expressed in the thymus and spleen.

                                                J. Anim. Genet. 34(1&2), p.3-9, 2006

佐賀大学農学部応用生物科学科　動物資源開発学分野　和田研究室