Follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) receptor is mainly expressed in gonadal tissues and plays significant roles in mediating the actions of FSH in gonadal development and functions in vertebrates. In this study, a novel splice variant of FSHR (cFSHR-v) was identified from chicken ovary by RT-PCR. cFSHR-v is predicted to encode a putative protein of 700 amino acids with an alternated extracellular domain. Comparison of this splice variant with chicken genome database revealed that it is resulted from partial sequence (21bp) retention of intron 7. RT-PCR assay showed that cFSHR-v could be detected in ovary and testis. Using a pGL3-CRE-Luciferase reporting system, we demonstrated that only cFSHR, but not cFSHR-v, expressed in cultured CHO cells could be activated by human FSH in a dose-dependent manner, indicating that cFSHR-v may be incapable of transmitting signal. Our data revealed that FSHR variant is expressed in chicken gonads, however, its physiological remains to be elucidated.
