Genomic evidence for independent origins of beta-like globin genes in monotremes and therian mammals.

ABSTRACT: Phylogenetic reconstructions of the beta-globin gene family in vertebrates have revealed that developmentally regulated systems of hemoglobin synthesis have been reinvented multiple times in independent lineages. For example, the functional differentiation of embryonic and adult beta-like globin genes occurred independently in birds and mammals. In both taxa, the embryonic beta-globin gene is exclusively expressed in primitive erythroid cells derived from the yolk sac. However, the "epsilon-globin" gene in birds is not orthologous to the epsilon-globin gene in mammals, because they are independently derived from lineage-specific duplications of a proto beta-globin gene. Here, we report evidence that the early and late expressed beta-like globin genes in monotremes and therian mammals (mars

SUBMITTER: Opazo JC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2234189 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature