Identification of beta subunit of the rhesus monkey chorionic gonadotropin (rmCG)

Chorionic gonadotropin (CG) is a placental derived hormone that plays a crucial role in successful implantation and establishment of early pregnancy in the primates. The rhesus monkey was chosen as a model to understand the feasibility of developing human DNA immuno-contraceptive. The coding region of rhesus monkey CG beta-subunit (rmCGbeta) was isolated by the TDRT-PCR method. The nucleotide sequence including the leader peptide was 499 nucleotide long and encoded 166 amino acids. In comparing with the previous known primates CG beta-subunits, the rmCGbeta was the highest degree of homology with baboon CG beta-subunit at the deduced amino acid sequence (94%), 79.5% homology with human CG beta-subunit and 70.4% homology with marmoset monkey CG beta-subunit. The eukaryotic expression vector pCMV4-rmCGbeta inserted full-coding cDNA sequence of rmCGbeta was constructed, and the expression of rmCG beta-subunit in HeLa cells transient expressing system in vitro and BALB/c mice in vivo was determined. The results demonstrated that the recombinant PCMV4-rmCGbeta eukaryotic expression vector could express rmCG beta-subunit in vitro and in vivo.