Magic roundabout is an endothelial-specific ohnolog of ROBO1 which neo-functionalized to an essential new role in angiogenesis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Magic roundabout (ROBO4) is an unusual endothelial-specific paralog of the family of neuronally-expressed axon guidance receptors called roundabouts. Endothelial cells (ECs), whose uninterrupted sheet delimits the lumen of all vertebrate blood vessels and which are absent from invertebrate species, are a vertebrate-specific evolutionary novelty.

Results

Herein, the evolutionary mechanism of the duplication, retention and divergence of ROBO4 was investigated for the first time. Phylogenetic analyses carried out suggested that ROBO4 is a fast-evolving paralog of ROBO1 formed at the base of vertebrates. The ancestral expression pattern was neuronal. ROBO4 dramatically shifted its expression and became exceptionally specific to ECs. The data-mining of FANTOM5 and ENCO

SUBMITTER: Huminiecki L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6389290 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature