An Evolutionary and Phylogenetic Study of the BMP15 Gene

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 BMP15 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 BMP15 nucleotide sequences and amino acids sequences were retrieved from the NCBI gene bank. Sequence alignment, pair and multi-alignment comparison of the BMP15 gene of the various species were done with MEGA6. High degree of polymorphism of the BMP15 gene was observed among the studied species. Despite high polymorphism in BMP15 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 BMP15. The mean diversity among populations and the scattering coefficient of evolution in the BMP15 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 BMP15 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 BMP15 in different species, this study highlighted specific segments significantly more conserved in BMP15 from mono-ovulating as compared to super-ovulating species.