Mammalian pro-melanin-concentrating hormone (PMCH) has previously been shown to affect feed intake in rodent species. The objectives of this study were to sequence the Bos taurus PMCH gene in order to identify any existing genetic variants and to evaluate whether these affected carcass traits. An A-to-T SNP was identified at position -134 relative to the ATG start codon (g.-134A>T). The alleles at this SNP were significantly associated with average fat and grade fat in two crossbred populations of Bos taurus cattle. The g.-134T allele may introduce a binding site for the transcriptional repressor, adenovirus E4 promoter binding protein, which may contribute to this effect. The g.-134A allele occurred in 67% of cattle examined and was associated with higher fat levels.
porB DNA sequence analysis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae multiantigen sequence typing (NG-MAST) methods were compared for their abilities to discriminate strains and to identify epidemiologically congruent pairs of N. gonorrhoeae. Both methods provided high-level discrimination of strains. NG-MAST further differentiated large porB-based clusters. However, considerations of cost suggest that porB DNA sequence analysis is a useful tool for preliminary molecular analysis of the epidemiology of N. gonorrhoeae.Molecular typing methods that differentiate Neisseria gonorrhoeae isolates, coupled with traditional epidemiological methods, have been used to identify circulating clusters of strains and transmission networks (3,24). DNA sequence analysis of various genes is currently the method of choice for distinguishing N. gonorrhoeae strains, as it provides unambiguous and reproducible information and high discriminatory power, and data can be stored or shared electronically, permitting reliable comparisons to be made between laboratories (10,11,23). porB DNA sequence analysis is now commonly used for studying the molecular epidemiology of N. gonorrhoeae (1,9,13,15,16,19,20,23) and involves the sequencing of either the entire gene or various regions of porB (8,(17)(18)(19). The N. gonorrhoeae multiantigen sequence typing (NG-MAST) methodology, which has been applied since 2004 (2, 9, 13, 20, 21), is based on limited DNA sequence analyses of two highly polymorphic loci, porB and tbpB (11). The NG-MAST database, available online (www.ng-mast.net), allows public access for sequence submission and the assignment of sequence types either for porB or tbpB individually or for the assignment of strain types (STs) using a combination of the two loci (11). The objective of the present study was to compare NG-MAST with porB DNA sequence analysis (ϳ82% of the full-length porB gene) to identify circulating clusters of N. gonorrhoeae isolates in Shanghai, China, and to evaluate the correlation between self-reported sexual contacts and genotypes of N. gonorrhoeae isolates.The N. gonorrhoeae isolates (n ϭ 199) were collected from males with gonorrhea (n ϭ 157) and their positive female partners (n ϭ 42), as previously described (8,25). These isolates included 39 pairs and one triplet (one male with two female partners) from patients with self-reported sexual contacts. The identification and growth of N. gonorrhoeae isolates were described previously (8, 25). DNA was extracted from the isolates and used for PCR amplification of porB and tbpB. Amplicons were analyzed as previously described (8,11,25). porB DNA sequence analysis covered ϳ82% of the nucleotides encoding surface-exposed loops I to VII and interspace regions II to VII as described and analyzed previously (8,15,22), and porB DNA sequences were deposited in the GenBank database (8). Each isolate was arbitrarily assigned a porB DNA sequence type (PST), and isolates were sorted into groups based on PSTs; groups also defined common clusters of isolates. For NG-MAST analysis, DNA seque...
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