The Evolutionary History of The Orexin/Allatotropin GPCR Family: from Placozoa and Cnidaria to Vertebrata.

ABSTRACT: Peptidic messengers constitute a highly diversified group of intercellular messengers widely distributed in nature that regulate a great number of physiological processes in Metazoa. Being crucial for life, it seem that they have appeared in the ancestral group from which Metazoa evolved, and were highly conserved along the evolutionary process. Peptides act mainly through G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), a family of transmembrane molecules. GPCRs are also widely distributed in nature being present in metazoan, but also in Choanoflagellata and Fungi. Among GPCRs, the Allatotropin/Orexin (AT/Ox) family is particularly characterized by the presence of the DRW motif in the second intracellular loop (IC Loop 2), and seems to be present in Cnidaria, Placozoa and in Bilateria, suggesting tha

SUBMITTER: Alzugaray ME 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6629687 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature