No abstract

Background Marek’s disease (MD), as a chicken neoplastic disease, brings huge economic losses to the global poultry industry. The tumor suppressor gene, wild type P53 plays a key role in blocking cell cycle, promoting apoptosis and maintaining stability of genome. The p53 function could change to that of an oncogene from a tumor inhibitory role, if a mutation happened. It will increase risk of cancer incidence. Results It was found that the mutation rate of p53 was 60 percent in experimentally infected and naturally infected chickens. The mutations included point-mutation and deletions, and mostly located in the DNA-binding domain. The most common point mutation happened in five sites, which were 651, 786, 828, 864 and 879 respectively. The mutated P53 can be expressed in tumors of various tissues in an infected chicken because of the lengthening of the half-life of mutated P53. Due to the loss of nuclear localization function, most of mutated P53 were expressed in cytoplasm. The concentration of P53 was decrease in serum of MD infected chicken. Conclusions Results of the current study suggested that p53 mutations with different types were common in MD, and most of mutated P53 were expressed in cytoplasm. Detecting the concertation of P53 and P53 antibody in serum could be helpful for diagnosis and monitor of MD.