Computational Molecular Analysis of the Sequences of PAPPA2 Gene of Selected Ruminants and Non Ruminants

Pregnancy associated plasma protein A2 (PAPPA2) is an Insulin-like growth factor binding protein (IGFBP) protease of the pappalysin family. This gene has been reported to be associated with prenatal growth, postnatal growth, skeletal growth, calving interval, milk yield, fertility and parity in cattle. The present study was undertaken to computationally investigate the attendant effects of the genetic variants of the PAPPA2 gene on its function and to gain insight into the evolutionary proximity and divergence in ruminants and non-ruminants at the studied locus. A total of fourteen (14) PAPPA2 nucleotide sequences comprising cattle (3), sheep (4), goat (1), pig (3), chicken (1) and horse (2) were retrieved from the GenBank. Functional analysis of non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphism showed that eight amino acid substitutions (C31I, R60V, Y71G, S119L, S181Y, R190I, Q361M, P178_E180del) in goats, seven in sheep (V9E, L44D, T185N, A125W, Y78S, R194V, R240L), seven in cattle (L11F, C50_W51insTDAPK, E100L, A250T, G257L, M850V), nine in chickens (A60G, S104_R170del, A190F, G128A, I10C, S309G, F48L, Q1630L) and eight in pigs (A61L, P72D, L11Q, K184T, D110C, S193_R194insTQD, Q481_E484del and T170_V172delinsVA) were returned neutral suggesting their beneficial effect. The phylogenetic trees from nucleotide sequences revealed the close relatedness of members of the Bovidae family (sheep, cattle and goat). The present information may be exploited in research into the association between PAPPA2 genotypes and some important economical traits in farm animals.