Page 12 - L. Genetics and genomics

[L. Genetics and genomics-13]

Absence of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the

open reading frame (ORF) of the prion protein gene (PRNP)

in a large sampling of various chicken breeds

Sae-Young Won¹˙², Byung-Hoon Jeong¹˙²

¹Department of Bioactive Material Sciences, Jeonbuk National University, Jeonju 54896, South Korea, ²Korea

Zoonosis Research Institute , Jeonbuk National University, Iksan 54531, South Korea

Prion diseases are zoonotic diseases with a broad infection spectrum among mammalian hosts and are caused by
the misfolded prion protein (PrPSc) derived from the normal prion protein (PrPC), which encodes the prion protein

gene (PRNP). Currently, although several prion disease-resistant animals have been reported, a high dose of prion
agent inoculation triggers prion disease infection in these disease-resistant animals. However, in chickens, natural

prion disease-infected cases have not been reported, and experimental challenges with prion agents have failed to
cause infection. Unlike other prion disease-resistant animals, chickens have shown perfect resistance to prion disease

thus far. Thus, investigation of the chicken PRNP gene could improve for understanding the mechanism of perfect
prion-disease resistance. Here, we investigated the genetic characteristics of the open reading frame (ORF) of the

chicken PRNP gene in a large sampling of various chicken breeds. We found only tandem repeat deletion
polymorphisms of the chicken PRNP ORF in the 4 chicken breeds including 106 Dekalb White, 100 Ross, 98 Ogolgye

and 100 Korean native chickens. In addition, the distribution of chicken insertion/deletion polymorphisms was
significantly different among the 4 chicken breeds. Finally, w