Molecular cloning and identification of bottle-nosed dolphin flavocytochrome b gp91 phox and p22 phox subunits

Abstract

The bottle-nosed dolphin ( Tursiops truncatus) gp91 phox and p22 phox cDNA were cloned from mitogen stimulated leukocytes RNA utilizing the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. The sequences of these cDNAs showed that dolphin gp91 phox and p22 phox clones contained open reading frames encoding 569 and 192 amino acids, respectively. Analysis of the gp91 phox amino acids sequence showed three potential N-linked glycosylation sites. Comparison of the deduced amino acid showed that dolphin gp91 phox sequence shared 95.4, 93.8, 91.4 and 89.5% similarity with the bovine, porcine, human and mouse gp91 phox sequences, respectively. Similarly, the amino acid sequence showed that dolphin p22 phox shared 89.7, 84.6, 84.1, 83.6 and 83.6% similarity with the bovine, mouse, porcine, human and rattus p22 phox sequences, respectively. Western blotting analysis with anti-peptide antibodies supported the molecular weights of the dolphin gp91 phox and p22 phox homologous proteins predicted from the cDNAs and amino acids sequence data.