Identification and Characterization of Protamine1 Gene in Aceh Cattle

¹ Laboratory of Biochemistry, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Aceh, Indonesia;
² Laboratory of Parasitology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Aceh, Indonesia;
³ Laboratory of Clinic, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Aceh, Indonesia;
⁴ Laboratory of Histology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Aceh, Indonesia.
⁵ Center for Collaborative Research Animal Biotechnology and Coral Reef Fisheries (CCR ANBIOCORE), USAID-SHERA.

^* Corresponding author: akmal.kh@unsyiah.ac.id

Abstract

Naturally, the fertility of Aceh cattle has declined and caused huge losses in the development of Aceh cow germplasm. Several genetic-based studies have been carried out in Aceh cattle, including characteristics of genetic diversity using microsatellite DNA and its relationship to body weight in Aceh cows, but there is no research on genomics that is closely related to fertility, especially fertility in aceh cows. Previous studies have revealed a correlation between fertility with the expression of several genes involved in spermatogeneses such as Protamines (PRM 1, 2, and 3) and Transition Nuclear Proteins (TNPS 1 and 2). This study aims to identify the PRM1 gene that plays an important role in spermatogenesis and the fertility status of Aceh cattle. This research was carried out using 10 Aceh cattle testes taken from slaughterhouses, followed by DNA isolation, amplification of the PRM1 gene, DNA sequencing, and DNA base sequence analysis. The result showed that the nucleotide sequences of aceh cattle PRM1 gene did not differ from the PRM1 gene from Bos taurus and Bos indicus in the GeneBank. Analysis of protein sequences showed that PRM1 in Aceh cattle sperm is rich in the amino acid arginine, which is 36.92%. From this study, it can be concluded that the PRM1 gene from Aceh cattle is identical to the PRM1 gene from Bos taurus and Bos indicus both at the DNA sequence level and at the protein sequence.