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ARS Home » Plains Area » Clay Center, Nebraska » U.S. Meat Animal Research Center » Genetics and Animal Breeding » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #303528
Title: Association of TMEM154 missense mutations with lentiviral infection and virus subtypes in sheep

Author
item Heaton, Michael - Mike
item Leymaster, Kreg
item Clawson, Michael - Mike

Submitted to: World Congress of Genetics Applied in Livestock Production
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/2/2014
Publication Date: 8/17/2014
Citation: Heaton, M.P., Leymaster, K.A., Clawson, M.L. 2014. Association of TMEM154 missense mutations with lentiviral infection and virus subtypes in sheep. In: Proceedings of the 10th World Congress of Genetics Applied to Livestock Production, August 17-22, 2014, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Available. Paper No. 352. https://asas.org/wcgalp-proceedings

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Small ruminant lentivirus (SRLV) infections are a major cause of production losses in many sheep industries. Genetic susceptibility to SRLV infection in sheep is associated with the transmembrane protein 154 gene (TMEM154). A lysine mutation affecting the extracellular domain (K35, variant 1) is associated with significant reduction in infection rate. In production environments, the incidence of SRLV in ewes homozygous with variant 1 can be one eighth that of ewes with the variants encoding glutamate (E35, variants 2 or 3). The highly-susceptible, ancestral variant 3 allele shows complete dominance compared to variant 1. Twelve variants, encoding different amino acid sequences have been identified in sheep, including frameshift deletions predicted to obliterate TMEM154 function. Distinct SRLV genetic subgroups are associated with E35 and K35 variants, suggesting a direct interaction. Managing genetic variation in the TMEM154 gene may help reduce, and then eradicate, SRLV in affected flocks.