Are you sure that there is any information about those genes? I think it´s a tricky question to use the sequences from mammals for desing specific primers in Mytilus. It is better if you try to design the qPCR specific primers using another bibalve mollusk as a template (oyster, clams....). Nevertheless, there is a specific Mytillus galloprivincialis database (Mytibase) were you can find a lot of ESTs from this species. Moreover, you can try to check some repository from RNAseq results (Gerdol et al., 2014; Rosani et al., 2014). All the best and good luck!

Dear Patricia,

Thank you for your reply, about the informations about this genes, i mean that there is many authors prouved that many cytokines exist in Mytilus and many other mollusks species using recombinant, human or rabbit, antibodies (Ottaviani, J.I Ramos-Martinez) for example, and as you know especially that you're working in this field that some Mytilus genes homology with Human, sometimes, goes up to 90% (mdm genes for example and p53 perhaps about 60%) so why not using the human genes to pick primers ( just a logic point of view), also concerning the Mytibase, are you sure that the site is still working, because i tried many times but there is some problem happened noy only for me also for other researchers from USA, as they told,. One more time thank you very much, i appreciate your reply. All the best and kind regards! 

Yep!, you´re right, the Mytibase is not working well. I don´t know what is happening,.. (I'm going to talk with Beatriz Novoa and Antonio Figueras about that) Yes, I think you can try it with mammals, it is a possibility when this is the only available information. Nevertheless, you can try to find sequences from other bivalves and search conserved regions between species (including mammals) for designing the primers. Cheers!!!!

Just remember that when designing primers you need to focus on identity, not homology. A protein can be highly homologous yet have a different sequence in that a sufficient number of bases are not identical. Therefore the 3' terminus should end with the first (or first two) bases of a codon of amino acids with little coding redundancy. 

Dear Younes,

I know your problem very well since I dealt with the same question at the beginning of my last project. Be prepared that reviewers will ask the same question if you later want to publish your work. What I did was that I designed primers from a mouse source in order to measure gene expression in certain hamster species. After (q)PCR with mouse designed primers and hamster DNA, I sequenced the cDNA product and did a BLAST search for that sequence. What I found was the target gene in other species with known genome. Importantly, I did not find any other gene that matched, so the reviewers were convinced. See more details in my publication:

Gene. 2014 Sep 10;548(1):101-11. doi: 10.1016/j.gene.2014.07.019. Evidence for species-specific clock gene expression patterns in hamster peripheral tissues. Meyer V1, Lerchl A2.

I attached the file, too. If you have any questions, I am happy to help you.

Vivian

Dear Viviane,

Thank you very much, i appreciate your reply, Regards. Younes

Dear Arthur,

I' really appreciate your giving hand, yes of course, i'll be grateful, but if you want, this is my e-mail: [email protected]

With all my best regards!!!