Abstract: Perforin-like Protein 1 (PLP1) plays an important role in the invasion process of T. gondii. In this study, we examined sequence variation in the PLP1 gene among six T. gondii strains from Guangzhou and Panyu in Guangdong, Suhe in Henan, Huzhu in Qinghai provinces of China, France and the USA, representing different genotypes. The PLP1 gene was amplified from the >6 strains by Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) and the amplicons were cloned and sequenced. The length of all of the PLP1 sequences was 3453 bp, consistent with that available in GenBank (EF 102772.2). In total, there were 42 (1.22%) variable nucleotide positions among the six PLP1 gene sequences and the 22 of which represented transversions. The A+T contents of the sequences was 48.3~48.9%. Intra-specific nucleotide variation was related mainly to changes at the 2nd and 3rd codon positions while fewer changes were detected at the 1st codon position. These results demonstrated that sequence variation in PLP1 gene among the six T. gondii strains was low and the PLP1 gene may not be an appropriate marker for the studies of genetic variation among T. gondii strains.
H.K. Yan, H.Q. Song, Y. Zhou, D. Ren, D.H. Zhou, M.J. Xu, R.Q. Lin, X.Q. Zhu and Z.G. Yuan, 2011. Sequence Variation in Perforin-Like Protein 1 Gene among Six Toxoplasma gondii Strains. Journal of Animal and Veterinary Advances, 10: 2244-2247.