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Origin and diversification of the basic helix-loop-helix gene family in metazoans: insights from comparative genomics

BACKGROUND: Molecular and genetic analyses conducted in model organisms such as Drosophila and vertebrates, have provided a wealth of information about how networks of transcription factors control the proper development of these species. Much less is known, however, about the evolutionary origin of...

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Autores principales: Simionato, Elena, Ledent, Valérie, Richards, Gemma, Thomas-Chollier, Morgane, Kerner, Pierre, Coornaert, David, Degnan, Bernard M, Vervoort, Michel
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2007
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1828162/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17335570
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-7-33
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author Simionato, Elena
Ledent, Valérie
Richards, Gemma
Thomas-Chollier, Morgane
Kerner, Pierre
Coornaert, David
Degnan, Bernard M
Vervoort, Michel
author_facet Simionato, Elena
Ledent, Valérie
Richards, Gemma
Thomas-Chollier, Morgane
Kerner, Pierre
Coornaert, David
Degnan, Bernard M
Vervoort, Michel
author_sort Simionato, Elena
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Molecular and genetic analyses conducted in model organisms such as Drosophila and vertebrates, have provided a wealth of information about how networks of transcription factors control the proper development of these species. Much less is known, however, about the evolutionary origin of these elaborated networks and their large-scale evolution. Here we report the first evolutionary analysis of a whole superfamily of transcription factors, the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins, at the scale of the whole metazoan kingdom. RESULTS: We identified in silico the putative full complement of bHLH genes in the sequenced genomes of 12 different species representative of the main metazoan lineages, including three non-bilaterian metazoans, the cnidarians Nematostella vectensis and Hydra magnipapillata and the demosponge Amphimedon queenslandica. We have performed extensive phylogenetic analyses of the 695 identified bHLHs, which has allowed us to allocate most of these bHLHs to defined evolutionary conserved groups of orthology. CONCLUSION: Three main features in the history of the bHLH gene superfamily can be inferred from these analyses: (i) an initial diversification of the bHLHs has occurred in the pre-Cambrian, prior to metazoan cladogenesis; (ii) a second expansion of the bHLH superfamily occurred early in metazoan evolution before bilaterians and cnidarians diverged; and (iii) the bHLH complement during the evolution of the bilaterians has been remarkably stable. We suggest that these features may be extended to other developmental gene families and reflect a general trend in the evolution of the developmental gene repertoires of metazoans.
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spelling pubmed-18281622007-03-17 Origin and diversification of the basic helix-loop-helix gene family in metazoans: insights from comparative genomics Simionato, Elena Ledent, Valérie Richards, Gemma Thomas-Chollier, Morgane Kerner, Pierre Coornaert, David Degnan, Bernard M Vervoort, Michel BMC Evol Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: Molecular and genetic analyses conducted in model organisms such as Drosophila and vertebrates, have provided a wealth of information about how networks of transcription factors control the proper development of these species. Much less is known, however, about the evolutionary origin of these elaborated networks and their large-scale evolution. Here we report the first evolutionary analysis of a whole superfamily of transcription factors, the basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins, at the scale of the whole metazoan kingdom. RESULTS: We identified in silico the putative full complement of bHLH genes in the sequenced genomes of 12 different species representative of the main metazoan lineages, including three non-bilaterian metazoans, the cnidarians Nematostella vectensis and Hydra magnipapillata and the demosponge Amphimedon queenslandica. We have performed extensive phylogenetic analyses of the 695 identified bHLHs, which has allowed us to allocate most of these bHLHs to defined evolutionary conserved groups of orthology. CONCLUSION: Three main features in the history of the bHLH gene superfamily can be inferred from these analyses: (i) an initial diversification of the bHLHs has occurred in the pre-Cambrian, prior to metazoan cladogenesis; (ii) a second expansion of the bHLH superfamily occurred early in metazoan evolution before bilaterians and cnidarians diverged; and (iii) the bHLH complement during the evolution of the bilaterians has been remarkably stable. We suggest that these features may be extended to other developmental gene families and reflect a general trend in the evolution of the developmental gene repertoires of metazoans. BioMed Central 2007-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC1828162/ /pubmed/17335570 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-7-33 Text en Copyright © 2007 Simionato et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Simionato, Elena
Ledent, Valérie
Richards, Gemma
Thomas-Chollier, Morgane
Kerner, Pierre
Coornaert, David
Degnan, Bernard M
Vervoort, Michel
Origin and diversification of the basic helix-loop-helix gene family in metazoans: insights from comparative genomics
title Origin and diversification of the basic helix-loop-helix gene family in metazoans: insights from comparative genomics
title_full Origin and diversification of the basic helix-loop-helix gene family in metazoans: insights from comparative genomics
title_fullStr Origin and diversification of the basic helix-loop-helix gene family in metazoans: insights from comparative genomics
title_full_unstemmed Origin and diversification of the basic helix-loop-helix gene family in metazoans: insights from comparative genomics
title_short Origin and diversification of the basic helix-loop-helix gene family in metazoans: insights from comparative genomics
title_sort origin and diversification of the basic helix-loop-helix gene family in metazoans: insights from comparative genomics
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1828162/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17335570
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-7-33
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