Partial molecular characterization of the Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) alpha-cardiac muscle actin gene and its relationship to actin isoforms of other fish species

• Main Authors: Adriane P. Wasko, Fábio E. Severino, Flávia T. Presti, Andréia B. Poletto, Cesar Martins
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sociedade Brasileira de Genética 2007-01-01
• Series: Genetics and Molecular Biology
• Subjects: actin gene; amino acid residues; gene structure; Nile tilapia; nucleotide sequence; Oreochromis niloticus
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1415-47572007000600010
• ISSN: 1415-4757; 1678-4685

An alpha actin gene segment, isolated from Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), was characterized by nucleotide sequencing, predicted amino acid sequence and Southern blot hybridization. Genomic DNA amplification resulted in a 1063-bp fragment corresponding to a partial alpha-cardiac muscle actin gene containing exons 3 to 6. Southern blot analysis of the restriction-digested DNA revealed that the Nile tilapia genome contains multiple muscle actin isoforms. Although comparison of the nucleotide sequence, amino acid residues and exon-intron organization of the isolated actin gene with those of other vertebrates showed a high level of identity, diagnostic amino acid residues can still be correlated to distinct actin genes in fish species.