Comprehensive gene expression analysis of canine tongue mucosa and gene structure analysis of canine taste receptor families using next generation sequencer

Abstract

In this study, we examined the gene expression frequency of canine tongue mucosa and analyzed the gene structure of canine taste receptor-related gene families using a next-generation sequencer. First, we performed RNA-seq analysis on canine mucosa samples, obtained 984,903 short-read sequence tags, and mapped them to the canine whole-genome sequences. Gene expression analysis reveals S100A8 to be the most frequently expressed gene, while skeletal musclerelated, cardiac muscle-related, and detoxification-related genes were also found to be highly expressed. Sequence tags of the taste receptor-related genes were mapped to the 5' terminal region of TAS2R40, TRPV1, and PKD1. Based on the genomic region of TAS2R40, where the tags mapped, we deduced the primary sequence of a 306 amino-acid canine TAS2R40 protein, which shows 76% homology to the human TAS2R40, and 62% homology to the mouse TAS2R40.