Variation in vkorc1 gene of five rodent species endemic to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

The variations of vitamin K epoxide reductase complex subunit 1 (vkorc1) gene play a key role in resistance of rodents to anticoagulant rodenticides. In this study, the transcriptomic methods were applied to analyze the sequence information of five rodents plateau zokor (Eospalax baileyi), plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae), lesser long-tailed hamster (Cricetulus longicaudatus), Qinghai vole (Lasiopodomys fuscus), and Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana), which are endemic to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP). We also sampled 54 plateau zokors from five populations and analyzed the variations within the complete vkorc1 gene (including introns). From transcriptome assemblies, we successfully obtained the complete coding sequences of vkorc1 gene of five QTP animals. Of which, the length of vkorc1 CDS in vole, hamster, and zokor was 486 bp, while it was 492 bp in marmot and pika. At the DNA sequence level, there were 143 variable sites among the five QTP animals, the sequence similarities between the five QTP animals and rat (Rattus norvegicus) were 80.1%~90.7%, while between the five QTP animals and mouse (Mus musculus) were 79.7~89.8%. At the amino acid sequence level, there were 37 variable sites among the five QTP animals, the sequence similarities between the five QTP animals and rat (Rattus norvegicus) were 84.0%~92.0%, while between the five QTP animals and mouse were 85.9%~92.0%; no amino acid residue was identical with which involved in anticoagulant resistance in Rattus and Mus. We obtained the complete vkorc1 gene (including introns) sequences of the 54 zokors, based on the 1 808 bp alignment we detected 8 variable sites (including 2 indel sites), all of them were in the intron region. This is the first vkorc1 sequence data from rodent species endemic to the QTP and these results will provide important scientific foundations for rodent control in the QTP regions.