Cloning, Characterization of Landes Goose C/EBPbeta Gene and Its mRNA Expression Response to Dietary Betaine Supplementation in Fatty Liver

The protein synthesised from the C/EBPβ gene interacts specifically with a C/EBP-recognition sequence and acts as a transcriptional activator. It plays a key role in lipometabolism and therefore is considered as a candidate gene for goose fat liver forming. In order to get the sequence, four pairs specificity primers were designed for amplification of C/EBPβ gene in Landes geese. The fragments of C/EBPβ gene in geese were obtained by PCR amplification and splicing. The length of the complete DNA sequence was 2130 bp (Genebank accession number GU068582), including the promoter regions and a 984 bp open reading frame coding 327 amino acid(aa) . High percentages of G and C nucleotides were found in the coding region and 5´flanking region comprising a CpG island. The corresponding mRNA is present at high levels in the liver and adipose tissue compared to others. This indicated that it was closely related with lipid metabolism. In liver, the expression of C/EBPβ mRNA was higher in geese overfed than that of control group (P<;0.01). Compared with the overfed groups, the geese that were fed the betaine supplemented diet showed the decreased expression on the transcriptive level in the livers.