Gene expression pattern of KIFC3 during spermatogenesis of the skink Eumeces chinensis

Abstract Kinesin superfamily is a class of microtubule-dependent motors that play crucial roles in acrosome biogenesis, nuclear reshaping and flagellum formation during spermiogenesis. We have cloned kinesin-like gene kifc3 (termed ec-kifc3 ) from the total RNA of the testis of the skink Eumeces chinensis . The cDNA sequence of ec-kifc3 had a full-length of 3033 bp, including a 260 bp 5′-untranslated region (5′UTR), a 445 bp 3′-untranslated region (3′UTR) and an open reading frame that encoded a 775-amino-acid protein. Additionally, the calculated molecular weight of the putative ec -KIFC3 was 87 kDa and its estimated isoelectric point was 6.18. Structurally, the putative ec -KIFC3 had three domains: head domain, neck domain and tail domain. Protein alignment demonstrated that ec -KIFC3 had 47.2%, 67.8%, 68.8%, 69.3% and 76.8% identity with its homologues in Xenopus laevis , Mus musculus , Cricetulus griseus , Homo sapiens , and Gallus gallus . The phylogenetic analysis showed that ec -KIFC3 was more related to KIFC3 in vertebrates than invertebrates. Tissue expression results showed the presence of ec -KIFC3 in various tissues with its highest expression in the testis. In situ hybridization demonstrated that ec -KIFC3 mRNA was distributed around the nucleus in early and middle stage spermatids and expressed in the nucleus in the elongating spermatids during spermiogenesis. Besides, the ec -KIFC3 mRNA was expressed in the acrosome of the developmental spermatids. From the results of in situ hybridization and previous researches, we speculated that ec -KIFC3 may play a role in nuclear morphogenesis and acrosome formation during spermiogenesis of E. chinensis .