The Rise and Fall of TRP-N, an Ancient Family of Mechanogated Ion Channels, in Metazoa.

ABSTRACT: Mechanoreception, the sensing of mechanical forces, is an ancient means of orientation and communication and tightly linked to the evolution of motile animals. In flies, the transient-receptor-potential N protein (TRP-N) was found to be a cilia-associated mechanoreceptor. TRP-N belongs to a large and diverse family of ion channels. Its unusually long N-terminal repeat of 28 ankyrin domains presumably acts as the gating spring by which mechanical energy induces channel gating. We analyzed the evolutionary origins and possible diversification of TRP-N. Using a custom-made set of highly discriminative sequence profiles we scanned a representative set of metazoan genomes and subsequently corrected several gene models. We find that, contrary to other ion channel families, TRP-N is remarkably co

SUBMITTER: Schuler A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4494053 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature