Genomic, evolutionary, and expression analyses of cee, an ancient gene involved in normal growth and development

Abstract

The cee (conserved edge expressed protein) gene was recently identified in a genome-wide screen to discover genes associated with myotube formation in fast muscle of pufferfish. Comparative genomic analyses indicate that cee arose some 1.6-1.8 billion years ago and is found as a single-copy gene in most eukaryotic genomes examined. The complexity of its structure varies from an intronless gene in yeast and tunicates to nine exons and eight introns in vertebrates. cee is particularly conserved among vertebrates and is located in a syntenic region within tetrapods and between teleosts and invertebrates. Low dN/dS ratios in the cee coding region (0.02-0.09) indicate that the Cee protein is under strong purifying selection. In Atlantic salmon, cee is expressed in the superficial layers of developing organs and tissues. These data, together with functional screens in yeast and Caenorhabditis elegans, indicate that cee has a hitherto uncharacterized role in normal growth and development.

Crystal Structure of Get4-Get5 Complex and Its Interactions with Sgt2, Get3, and Ydj1

“…The Get3 homolog, Ansa-1, participates in the insertion of TA proteins into membranes (32). Vertebrate homologs of Get4 have also been identified (33), but their function(s) has not been elucidated. The vertebrate homolog of Get5 remains elusive, and no protein has been found to have amino acid sequence similarity with the N-terminal region of Get5.…”

Hypoxia-Inducible Factor α and Hif-prolyl Hydroxylase Characterization and Gene Expression in Short-Time Air-Exposed Mytilus galloprovincialis

“…ugent.be/~jvdesomp/genorm/). Specific quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) primers for hif-α and phd amplifications were designed across conserved intron/exon junctions in order to prevent amplification of any genomic DNA (Fernandes et al 2008). All sets of primers are listed in Table 1.…”

Structural characterization of the Get4/Get5 complex and its interaction with Get3

“…In addition, to rule out the general effects of charge swapping, we generated another pair of mutants of unconserved residues (K65D/K67D) as a control. Finally, we mutated the highly conserved Tyr 29, Tyr 30, and Glu 31 to alanines (YYE/AAA) (16). All of these mutants were purified and behaved similar to wild type on a size exclusion column (Fig.…”

“…S1A) (16). Its high homology, 26% identity from yeast to humans, belies the fact that until recently very little was known about its biological role.…”

“…Get4 [yeast locus Yor164c, human locus C7orf20 and cee in fish (16)] is a highly conserved protein that is estimated to have arisen early in evolution (Fig. S1A) (16).…”