Cloning and Sequence Analysis of IL-2 Gene in Ailuropoda Melanoleuca

By reverse transcription polymerrase chain reaction(RT-PCR),the giant panda IL-2 gene was cloned from total RNA which was extracted from ConA-stimulated-cultured peripheral blood lymphocytes of the giant panda and the amplified products of PCR were cloned into PGEM-T vector.After identification and sequencing,the sequence analysis revealed that the open reading frame of the giant panda IL-2 gene contained 465 nucleotides which encode 155 amino acids,the signal peptide contained 20 amino acids and the mature IL-2 gene was composed of 135 amino acids.Compared with other known mammals in Genbank,including dog,cat,human,pig,cow,horse,goat,rabbit,rat and so on,the homology of nucleotide sequence was between 66.5 %(rat) and 91.5 %(dog),the homology of amino acid sequence was between 54.8 %(rat) and 85.2 %(dog).Phylogenetic analysis based on the nucleotide sequence of the IL-2 gene showed that the giant panda had the most closed genetic relation with the dog.