Immunohistochemical distribution of c-Kit and its gene expression via real-time PCR in skin tissue of goats with a black and

摘要

The signaling pathway of the stem cell factor and its receptor, c-Kit, plays an important physiologicalrole in melanogenesis. The expression of c-Kit was investigated using real-time quantitative PCRand immunohistochemical staining in skin with a white and black coat colour. The length of theentire open reading frame of the c-Kit gene is 2925 bp. The c-Kit protein is conserved in the structuredomain. The c-Kit is mainly located on membranes and widely expressed in the skin tissue. ThemRNA expression of c-Kit is 1.28 times higher in skin with the black coat colour than in that withthe white coat colour. There was no significantly different expression of c-Kit mRNA and protein(P>0.05) between skin with the white and the black coat colour. These results indicate that thereseems to be no direct relationship between coat colour and the expression of the c-Kit gene in goats.