Sequencing and comparative analysis of fugu protocadherin clusters reveal diversity of protocadherin genes among teleosts.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The synaptic cell adhesion molecules, protocadherins, are a vertebrate innovation that accompanied the emergence of the neural tube and the elaborate central nervous system. In mammals, the protocadherins are encoded by three closely-linked clusters (alpha, beta and gamma) of tandem genes and are hypothesized to provide a molecular code for specifying the remarkably-diverse neural connections in the central nervous system. Like mammals, the coelacanth, a lobe-finned fish, contains a single protocadherin locus, also arranged into alpha, beta and gamma clusters. Zebrafish, however, possesses two protocadherin loci that contain more than twice the number of genes as the coelacanth, but arranged only into alpha and gamma clusters. To gain further insight into the evolutionar

SUBMITTER: Yu WP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1852091 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature