Molecular Cloning, Sequence Analysis and Tissue Expression of Porcine R-Spondin2

The R-spondin 2 (Rspo2) belongs to the Rspo family, which is a cluster of secreted molecules possessing pleiotropic functions in development and stem cell growth by strongly enhancing Wnt signaling activation. In this study, porcine Rspo2 (pRspo2) was amplified from cDNA derived from porcine brain tissue. DNA sequencing result indicates that the open reading frame (ORF) of pRspo2 consists of 732 base pairs (bp), encodes 243 amino acids protein with a putative molecular weight of 28.19 kDa and is high identity to those of horse (98%), cattle (98%), human (96%) and rat (92%). pRspo2 is highly expressed in the brain tissue, whereas with comparatively lower level of expression in duodenum, thymus, liver, lung, lymph node, kidney and ileum tissues, which is characterized by reverse transcriptionpolymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis. All the results above will provide the fundamental research on the pleiotropic functions of pRspo2.