Developmental expression of the alpha-skeletal actin gene

BACKGROUND: Actin is a cytoskeletal protein which exerts a broad range of functions in almost all eukaryotic cells. In higher vertebrates, six primary actin isoforms can be distinguished: alpha-skeletal, alpha-cardiac, alpha-smooth muscle, gamma-smooth muscle, beta-cytoplasmic and gamma-cytoplasmic...

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Autores principales: Bertola, Laura D, Ott, Elisabeth B, Griepsma, Sander, Vonk, Freek J, Bagowski, Christoph P
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2443135/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18518953
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-8-166
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author Bertola, Laura D
Ott, Elisabeth B
Griepsma, Sander
Vonk, Freek J
Bagowski, Christoph P
author_facet Bertola, Laura D
Ott, Elisabeth B
Griepsma, Sander
Vonk, Freek J
Bagowski, Christoph P
author_sort Bertola, Laura D
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Actin is a cytoskeletal protein which exerts a broad range of functions in almost all eukaryotic cells. In higher vertebrates, six primary actin isoforms can be distinguished: alpha-skeletal, alpha-cardiac, alpha-smooth muscle, gamma-smooth muscle, beta-cytoplasmic and gamma-cytoplasmic isoactin. Expression of these actin isoforms during vertebrate development is highly regulated in a temporal and tissue-specific manner, but the mechanisms and the specific differences are currently not well understood. All members of the actin multigene family are highly conserved, suggesting that there is a high selective pressure on these proteins. RESULTS: We present here a model for the evolution of the genomic organization of alpha-skeletal actin and by molecular modeling, illustrate the structural differences of actin proteins of different phyla. We further describe and compare alpha-skeletal actin expression in two developmental stages of five vertebrate species (mouse, chicken, snake, salamander and fish). Our findings confirm that alpha-skeletal actin is expressed in skeletal muscle and in the heart of all five species. In addition, we identify many novel non-muscular expression domains including several in the central nervous system. CONCLUSION: Our results show that the high sequence homology of alpha-skeletal actins is reflected by similarities of their 3 dimensional protein structures, as well as by conserved gene expression patterns during vertebrate development. Nonetheless, we find here important differences in 3D structures, in gene architectures and identify novel expression domains for this structural and functional important gene.
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spelling pubmed-24431352008-07-04 Developmental expression of the alpha-skeletal actin gene Bertola, Laura D Ott, Elisabeth B Griepsma, Sander Vonk, Freek J Bagowski, Christoph P BMC Evol Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: Actin is a cytoskeletal protein which exerts a broad range of functions in almost all eukaryotic cells. In higher vertebrates, six primary actin isoforms can be distinguished: alpha-skeletal, alpha-cardiac, alpha-smooth muscle, gamma-smooth muscle, beta-cytoplasmic and gamma-cytoplasmic isoactin. Expression of these actin isoforms during vertebrate development is highly regulated in a temporal and tissue-specific manner, but the mechanisms and the specific differences are currently not well understood. All members of the actin multigene family are highly conserved, suggesting that there is a high selective pressure on these proteins. RESULTS: We present here a model for the evolution of the genomic organization of alpha-skeletal actin and by molecular modeling, illustrate the structural differences of actin proteins of different phyla. We further describe and compare alpha-skeletal actin expression in two developmental stages of five vertebrate species (mouse, chicken, snake, salamander and fish). Our findings confirm that alpha-skeletal actin is expressed in skeletal muscle and in the heart of all five species. In addition, we identify many novel non-muscular expression domains including several in the central nervous system. CONCLUSION: Our results show that the high sequence homology of alpha-skeletal actins is reflected by similarities of their 3 dimensional protein structures, as well as by conserved gene expression patterns during vertebrate development. Nonetheless, we find here important differences in 3D structures, in gene architectures and identify novel expression domains for this structural and functional important gene. BioMed Central 2008-06-02 /pmc/articles/PMC2443135/ /pubmed/18518953 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-8-166 Text en Copyright ©2008 Bertola 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
Bertola, Laura D
Ott, Elisabeth B
Griepsma, Sander
Vonk, Freek J
Bagowski, Christoph P
Developmental expression of the alpha-skeletal actin gene
title Developmental expression of the alpha-skeletal actin gene
title_full Developmental expression of the alpha-skeletal actin gene
title_fullStr Developmental expression of the alpha-skeletal actin gene
title_full_unstemmed Developmental expression of the alpha-skeletal actin gene
title_short Developmental expression of the alpha-skeletal actin gene
title_sort developmental expression of the alpha-skeletal actin gene
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2443135/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18518953
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2148-8-166
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