Pre-metazoan origins and evolution of the cadherin adhesome.

ABSTRACT: Vertebrate adherens junctions mediate cell-cell adhesion via a "classical" cadherin-catenin "core" complex, which is associated with and regulated by a functional network of proteins, collectively named the cadherin adhesome ("cadhesome"). The most basal metazoans have been shown to conserve the cadherin-catenin "core", but little is known about the evolution of the cadhesome. Using a bioinformatics approach based on both sequence and structural analysis, we have traced the evolution of this larger network in 26 organisms, from the uni-cellular ancestors of metazoans, through basal metazoans, to vertebrates. Surprisingly, we show that approximately 70% of the cadhesome, including proteins with similarity to the catenins, predate metazoans. We found that the transition to multicellularity w

SUBMITTER: Murray PS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4265756 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature