Characterization of a novel antimicrobial peptide gene from the reproductive tract of indigenous cows (Bos indicus) of Asom

Antimicrobial peptides are innate immune defense peptides protecting against infection. Defensins and cathelicidins are the two major antimicrobial peptides in eukaryotes. In the present study, female reproductive tract was collected from apparently healthy local cows (Bos indicus) of Asom after slaughter. cDNA was synthesized from the extracted RNA by reverse transcription and amplified the Lingual Antimicrobial Peptide (LAP) gene (227 bp) using specific primers. The purified product was sequenced and sequence were aligned Nucleotide sequence was BLAST with twelve published sequences and analyzed using DNA Star software. At nucleotide level, Bos indicus LAP of reproductive tract showed the highest similarity of 97.4% with Bos taurus LAP of tongue followed by 92.8% with buffalo EBD. We identified the highest similarity (93.8%) of Bos indicus LAP of reproductive tract with Bos taurus LAP of tongue followed by buffalo EBD (86.2%). The phylogenetic analyses at nucleotide and amino acid level showed that Bos indicus LAP of reproductive tract and Bos taurus LAP of tongue are closely evolutionarily which implied that they might have diverged from ancestral gene. We conclude that female reproductive-tract epithelium of local cows of Asom express a potent AMP similar to that of Bos taurus LAP of tongue.