In silico analysis of promoter region and regulatory elements of sheep keratin-associated protein genes using bioinformatics tools

Keratin-associated proteins (KAPs) are constituents of wool and play an important role in determining the characteristics of wool. Variation in many ovine KAP genes are associated with wool traits and are useful as markers for improving wool traits in sheep. The identification of promoters in a gene is an important part of the recognition of a gene's complete structure. In silico study was done with aim of analyzing the promoter regions and transcription factors with the aid of transcription start site (TSSs), regulatory elements and motifs of sheep KAP genes. Most of predicted TSSs (64%) found below -500 bp away from the start codon of the gene being expressed, and the rest were found from −515 to −1502 upstream of start codon. MKAP3 was identified as the most common motif for sheep KAP genes, which serves as binding sites for Zinc finger transcription factor to regulate the expression of the genes. Poor CpG Islands observed might suggest that their gene expression regulation pattern is tissue specific. In general, in silico analysis of KAP genes of sheep could be helpful to add knowledge about gene regulatory elements in the promoter regions. Furthermore, this finding will help for wool traits improvement of sheep.