Variation in Orthologous Shell-Forming Proteins Contribute to Molluscan Shell Diversity.

ABSTRACT: Despite the evolutionary success and ancient heritage of the molluscan shell, little is known about the molecular details of its formation, evolutionary origins, or the interactions between the material properties of the shell and its organic constituents. In contrast to this dearth of information, a growing collection of molluscan shell-forming proteomes and transcriptomes suggest they are comprised of both deeply conserved, and lineage specific elements. Analyses of these sequence data sets have suggested that mechanisms such as exon shuffling, gene co-option, and gene family expansion facilitated the rapid evolution of shell-forming proteomes and supported the diversification of this phylum specific structure. In order to further investigate and test these ideas we have examined the mol

SUBMITTER: Jackson DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5850307 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature