CHARACTERISATION OF MONO AMINE OXIDASE A (MAOA) GENE AND TRANSCRIPT FROM ASIAN ELEPHANT (Elephas maximus): A POSSIBLE CANDIDATE FOR RISK TAKING BEHAVIOUR
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Date
42580
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Kerala Veterinary and animal science university, Pookode
Abstract
Various studies in humans and other mammals showed the role of Mono
Amine Oxidase A (MAOA) gene in violent and aggressive behaviour. The
aggression and violent behaviour in case of humans is also a kind of risk taking.
Hence we hypothesise that MAOA gene may have a role in the risk taking (crop
raiding) behaviour of Asian Elephants. From the four autopsy samples of Asian
Elephants, MAOA genomic locus and its transcripts were identified and
characterised. The total length of identified transcript were 2083 (transcript - 1)
and 814 bp (transcript - 2) and have a common 5’UTR of 212 bp. Transcript - 1
composed of 1596 bp open reading frame (ORF) and a 275 bp 3′UTR. On the
contrary, transcript - 2 has a shorter ORF of 519 bp, and a 3′UTR of 83 bp when
compared to the transcript-1and it encodes a putative 172 aa protein. The
similarity search of nucleotide and protein sequences of transcript – 2 followed a
similar trend to that of transcript -1. The gene structure of MAOA deduced by
Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) platform displayed a 58366 bp of fragment
after the alignment, which contains fifteen coding exons and fourteen introns. The
genomic organization of the Asian Elephant MAOA gene is similar to that of
African elephant and humans.In the wide spread expression analysis of MAOA
gene in different tissues, transcript -2 (truncated form) was expressed in kidney,
brain, heart, lungs, liver and spleen. On contrary, none of the tissue showed
amplicon for transcript – 1 except the lung sample of a young male calf. The
homology modelling of MAOA protein deduced from the identified transcripts
showed considerable alteration in the structure. The MAOA protein structure
modelled from the amino acid sequence of transcript – 2 seems to be a truncated
form. The transcripts identified in the present study is highly correlated with the
elephant’s conflicting behaviour, hence MAOA gene may have a role in it. Above
all, analysis of MAOA gene and its transcript may provide base line information
on gene and transcripts structural organisation in Asian Elephants.
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