Porcine kallikrein gene family: genomic structure, mapping, and differential expression analysis

Kallikreins belong to a family of serine proteases that are widespread throughout living organisms, expressed in diverse tissue-specific patterns, and known to have highly diverse physiological functions. The 15 human and 24 mouse kallikreins have been implicated in pathophysiology of brain, kidney, and respiratory and reproductive systems and often are used as cancer biomarkers. To better elucidate the structure and evolutionary origin of this important gene family in the pig, we have constructed a contiguous BAC clone-derived physical map of the porcine kallikrein gene region and have fully sequenced a BAC clone containing 13 kallikrein genes, 11 of which are novel. Radiation hybrid mapping assigns this kallikrein-gene-rich region to porcine chromosome 6. Phylogenetic and percent identity plot-based analyses revealed strong structure and order conservation of kallikreins among four mammalian species. Reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction-based expression analysis of porcine kallikreins showed a complex expression pattern across different tissues with the thymus being the only tissue expressing all 13 kallikrein genes. [The sequence data described in this paper has been submitted to GenBank under Accession No. AC149292].