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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Madison, Wisconsin » U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center » Cell Wall Biology and Utilization Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #358484
Research Project: Investigating Microbial, Digestive, and Animal Factors to Increase Dairy Cow Performance and Nutrient Use Efficiency

Location: Cell Wall Biology and Utilization Research

Title: Goat and sheep KIR have independently expanded compared to cattle and a unique subtype is unusually expressed

Author
item SCHWARTZ, JOHN - The Pirbright Institute
item SANDERSON, NICHOLAS - The Pirbright Institute
item Bickhart, Derek
item Smith, Timothy - Tim
item HAMMOND, JOHN - Pirbright Laboratory

Submitted to: Meeting Abstract
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: 10/3/2018
Publication Date: N/A
Citation: N/A

Interpretive Summary:

Technical Abstract: Recent advancements in genome sequencing and assembly are greatly accelerating our ability to investigate complex immune regions such as the leukocyte receptor complex (LRC). Outside of simians, the only species known to have an expanded KIR repertoire are those belonging to the Bovidae family (e.g. cattle, sheep, and goat). We have therefore characterized the KIR region in recent high quality goat and sheep genome assemblies, and an assembly of sheep bacterial artificial chromosomes, and compared these to previously described cattle KIR. Our findings indicate that, despite being derived from different breeds, the two sheep assemblies possess a shared haplotype, while the sheep genome assembly possesses a second distinct haplotype. Furthermore, multiple KIR genes appear to be shared between goats and sheep, particularly those proximal to FCAR. Phylogenetic analysis of goat, sheep, and previously described cattle KIR genes revealed that the goat and sheep KIR have independently expanded relative to cattle and possess several genes belonging to novel KIR subgroups. We next assessed goat and sheep KIR expression in a variety of tissues using publicly available gene expression atlases. These analyses revealed an expected tissue distribution for three of the four bovid KIR subgroups; however, the FCAR-proximal KIR, which belong to a novel subgroup, was highly expressed in all macrophage preparations for both species. This unexpected expression coincided with high FCAR expression, which is expected of macrophages, and undetectable NCR1 expression, indicating minimal NK cell contamination. These results will help inform future studies which investigate the role of these receptors in livestock health and disease.