An Evolutionary and Phylogenetic Study of the <i>BMP15</i> Gene

Abstract

DNA sequence data contains a wealth of biologically useful information. Recent innovations in DNA sequencing technology have greatly increased our capacity to determine massive amounts of nucleotide sequences. These sequences can be used to specify the characteristics of different regions, interpret the evolutionary relationships between categorized groups, likelihood of performing multiple comparisons between an unidentified sequence and millions of specified sequences existing in DNA information gene banks. This study focuses on bioinformatics analysis of molecular genetic variation of the <em>BMP15</em> gene of some selected mammalian species with a view to providing relevant genetic information for breeding and selection programs in the studied species using computational methods. A total of twenty-three <em>BMP15</em> nucleotide sequences and amino acids sequences were retrieved from the <em>NCBI</em> gene bank. Sequence alignment, pair and multi-alignment comparison of the <em>BMP15</em> gene of the various species were done with <em>MEGA6</em>. High degree of polymorphism of the <em>BMP15</em> gene was observed among the studied species. Despite high polymorphism in <em>BMP15</em> similarity between sequences was greater than 98% and differences existing in fertility rates among species may be species-specific due to differences in the processing of <em>BMP15</em>. The mean diversity among populations and the scattering coefficient of evolution in the <em>BMP15</em> position were calculated to be 2.15 and 1.25 bp, respectively and the mean divergence was calculated to be 1.7 bp. Also, the mean divergence within the species was 4.1, 0.4 and 2.1 bp in sheep, cows and goats, respectively. Bases substitution rate and pattern in <em>BMP15</em> showed that cows and goats have the minimum genetic distance and human has the maximum genetic distance with sheep. In addition to existing variation in DNA and amino acids sequences between <em>BMP15</em> in different species, this study highlighted specific segments significantly more conserved in <em>BMP15 </em>from mono-ovulating as compared to super-ovulating species.