Expression of a novel surfactant protein gene is associated with sites of extrapulmonary respiration in a lungless salamander.

ABSTRACT: Numerous physiological and morphological adaptations were achieved during the transition to lungless respiration that accompanied evolutionary lung loss in plethodontid salamanders, including those that enable efficient gas exchange across extrapulmonary tissue. However, the molecular basis of these adaptations is unknown. Here, we show that lungless salamanders express in the larval integument and the adult buccopharynx-principal sites of respiratory gas exchange in these species-a novel paralogue of the gene surfactant-associated protein C (SFTPC), which is a critical component of pulmonary surfactant expressed exclusively in the lung in other vertebrates. The paralogous gene appears to be found only in salamanders, but, similar to SFTPC, in lunged salamanders it is

SUBMITTER: Lewis ZR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6191699 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature