Differential Evolution of Antiretroviral Restriction Factors in Pteropid Bats as Revealed by APOBEC3 Gene Complexity

Hayward, Joshua A; Tachedjian, Mary; Cui, Jie; Cheng, Adam Z; Johnson, Adam; Baker, Michelle L; Harris, Reuben S; Wang, Lin-Fa; Tachedjian, Gilda

Within the P. alecto A3 locus 18 gene coding regions were identified including 12 A3Z1, one prototypical A3Z2 (herein described as A3Z2A), four A3Z2B, and one A3Z3 ( fig. 1B) . The organization and number of the A3 genes was found to be identical between P. vampyrus and P. alecto. Neural network promoter prediction revealed promoter elements immediately upstream of each gene. Interferon-stimulated response element (ISRE) transcription factor binding sites for interferon regulatory factors and NF-jB were also identified in each promoter region (supplementary data S1, Supplementary Material online). These data indicate that each pteropid A3 gene is most likely capable of being transcribed and that their expression is potentially upregulated as part of the antiviral interferon response. Differential Evolution of Antiretroviral Restriction Factors in Pteropid Bats . doi:10.1093/molbev/msy048 MBE All P. alecto A3 cDNA sequences were successfully mapped against the assembled P. alecto loci, revealing various alternative splicing schemes that allow many of the A3 genes to express numerous transcripts (supplementary fig. S3 and table S1, Supplementary Material online). A comparison of the A3 loci of P. vampyrus and P. alecto against the A3 loci of other mammals ( fig. 1C ) reveals that pteropid bats possess the largest A3 locus yet reported, containing 18 putative A3