Carbonic Anhydrases in Cnidarians: Novel Perspectives from the Octocorallian Corallium rubrum.

ABSTRACT: Although the ability to elaborate calcium carbonate biominerals was apparently gained independently during animal evolution, members of the alpha carbonic anhydrases (α-CAs) family, which catalyze the interconversion of CO2 into HCO3-, are involved in the biomineralization process across metazoans. In the Mediterranean red coral Corallium rubrum, inhibition studies suggest an essential role of CAs in the synthesis of two biominerals produced in this octocoral, the axial skeleton and the sclerites. Hitherto no molecular characterization of these enzymes was available. In the present study we determined the complete set of α-CAs in C. rubrum by data mining the genome and transcriptome, and measured their differential gene expression between calcifying and non-calcifying tissues. We identifie

SUBMITTER: Le Goff C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4981384 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature