The Plateau Zokor Myospalax Baileyi Hemoglobin Gene Cloning

Plate zokor (Myospalax baileyi) is a kind of subterranean rodent, which living in burrows throughout its life. They are one of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau endemic species and widely distributed in elevation of 2 800-4 200m eastern of this plateau. The plateau is a natural laboratory to study the adaptation mechanism of animals for its typical high altitude and hypoxia. Living in the pressure of harsh environment, plate zokor has formed unique adaptation strategies and mechanisms. Currently, researches on plate zokor are focus on physiological, biochemical and morphological aspects. Few considerations in genetic level has been taken on its'adaptation mechanism to high altitude and hypoxia.In this research, we compared the nucleotide sequence of the a-globin of Deer mice, Mus, Rattus and Human being. There is little difference in upstream of initiation codon and downstream of termination codon about 20bp. So we designed two pairs of primer based on those parts to amplification the a-globin of plate zokor. The first pair is HbalF and HbalR and we got a fragment of 574bp. The second pair is Hba2F and Hba2R and we got a fragment of 460bp. After splicing, we got a fragment of 812bp.141 amino acids were deduced from software. There are 3 exons and 2 intrones.We cloned and detected the plateau zokors a-globin sequences. There are 18 substitutions when comparing the deduced amino acid sequence of the plateau zokors a-chain with that of humans. Regarding structural alterations, theα111Alaâ†'Asn can be noted in an important region. These positions locate atα1β1 contact which is known to be very tight and remains largely unchanged during the quaternary conformational change that accompanies ligand binding at the heme site in normal human HbA. The most important amino acid residues atα111 andβ115, which form anα1β1 contact in human hemoglobin, are altered in plateau zokors. It may suggest that the hydrogen bonds of theα1β1 interface could be compromised. This leads to change the conformational contact of ligand binding and influences the ability of Hb to bind to oxygen. Those differences may play an important role in oxygen transportation in plateau zokors.