Assignment of mitochondrial glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase (GPAM) gene to bovine chromosome 26 (26q22) by in situ hybridization and confirmation by somatic cell hybrid mapping.

Glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase catalyzes the first step of glycerolipid biosynthesis. It plays a key role in the regulation of cellular triacylglycerol and phospholipid levels. There are two isoforms of glycerol-3-phosphate acyltransferase in mammals, a mitochondrial and a cytosolic form. The mitochondrial form (GPAM) prefers saturated fatty acyl-CoA as a substrate, whereas the cytosolic enzyme uses both saturated and unsaturated fatty acyl-Co. The GPAM gene has been cloned and sequenced in rat (NM017274) and mouse (NM008149). Human GPAM has been located on chromosome 10 (HSA10q24→q26) and mouse Gpam on MMU19 (Welch et al., 1998) whereas the bovine GPAM gene remains unassigned. We used the mouse Gpam gene sequence to design specific primers in order to partially amplify the bovine gene. We report the localization of the bovine GPAM gene on bovine (BTA) chromosome 26q22 by fluorescence in situ hybridization and somatic cell hybrid analysis. Materials and methods