Exon-intron structure and sequence variation of the calreticulin gene among Rhipicephalus sanguineus group ticks.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Calreticulin proteins (CRTs) are important components of tick saliva, which is involved in the blood meal success, pathogen transmission and host allergic responses. The characterization of the genes encoding for salivary proteins, such as CRTs, is pivotal to understand the mechanisms of tick-host interaction during blood meal and to develop tick control strategies based on their inhibition. In hard ticks, crt genes were shown to have only one intron with conserved position among species. In this study we investigated the exon-intron structure and variation of the crt gene in Rhipicephalus spp. ticks in order to assess the crt exon-intron structure and the potential utility of crt gene as a molecular marker.

Methods

We sequenced the exon-intron region of crt gene

SUBMITTER: Porretta D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5154033 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature