Abstract: To investigate whether there are variants of the bovine Basigin （BSG） gene, the 3′ RACE and sequencing techniques were used to clone and characterize the bovine BSG gene, and the 3′ end fragments of four transcripts of the bovine BSG gene, named BSG-v1, BSG-v2, BSG-v3 and BSG-v4, were successfully cloned, of which BSG-v2, BSG-v3 and BSG-v4 were newly discovered variants of the bovine BSG gene. It was shown that BSG-v2 underwent variable splicing at exon 7, resulting in exon 7 of BSG-v2 being 515 bp shorter than that of BSG-v1, but did not change the open reading frame of BSG gene. Both BSG-v3 and BSG-v4 underwent alternative polyadenylation, which resulted in a shorter 3′ UTR due to the absence of exon 7, indicating the existence of different forms of variants of the bovine BSG gene. It provides a molecular biological basis for further studies on the function of the bovine BSG gene in different biological processes.

Key words: bovine, Basigin gene, variable splicing, selective polyadenylation, 3′ RACE