Assignment of the casein kinase II gene family to cattle chromosomes

Theileriosis, or East Coast fever, a parasitic disease in cattle, is associated with overexpression of casein kinase II. Casein kinase II is composed of two catalytic subunits (alpha or alpha') and two regulatory beta subunits. The genes encoding these subunits of casein kinase II were mapped to bovine chromosomes by polymerase chain reaction analysis of a well-characterized bovine x rodent somatic hybrid cell panel. The alpha-subunit (CSNK2A1) was mapped to bovine chromosome 13, the alpha'-subunit (CSNK2A2) to chromosome 5 and the beta-subunit (CSNK2B) to chromosome 23. Both CSNK2A1 and CSNK2B mapped to known regions of conserved synteny between human and cattle, while CSNK2A2 defined a new homology segment between the human and bovine genomes.