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ORTHOSCOPE Analysis Reveals the Presence of the Cellulose Synthase Gene in All Tunicate Genomes but Not in Other Animal Genomes

Tunicates or urochordates—comprising ascidians, larvaceans, and salps—are the only metazoans that can synthesize cellulose, a biological function usually associated with bacteria and plants but not animals. Tunicate cellulose or tunicine is a major component of the outer acellular coverage (tunic) o...

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Autores principales: Inoue, Jun, Nakashima, Keisuke, Satoh, Noriyuki
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6523144/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30974905
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes10040294
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author Inoue, Jun
Nakashima, Keisuke
Satoh, Noriyuki
author_facet Inoue, Jun
Nakashima, Keisuke
Satoh, Noriyuki
author_sort Inoue, Jun
collection PubMed
description Tunicates or urochordates—comprising ascidians, larvaceans, and salps—are the only metazoans that can synthesize cellulose, a biological function usually associated with bacteria and plants but not animals. Tunicate cellulose or tunicine is a major component of the outer acellular coverage (tunic) of the entire body of these organisms. Previous studies have suggested that the prokaryotic cellulose synthase gene (CesA) was horizontally transferred into the genome of a tunicate ancestor. However, no convenient tools have been devised to determine whether only tunicates harbor CesA. ORTHOSCOPE is a recently developed tool used to identify orthologous genes and to examine the phylogenic relationship of molecules within major metazoan taxa. The present analysis with this tool revealed the presence of CesA orthologs in all sequenced tunicate genomes but an absence in other metazoan genomes. This supports an evolutionary origin of animal cellulose and provides insights into the evolution of this animal taxon.
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spelling pubmed-65231442019-06-03 ORTHOSCOPE Analysis Reveals the Presence of the Cellulose Synthase Gene in All Tunicate Genomes but Not in Other Animal Genomes Inoue, Jun Nakashima, Keisuke Satoh, Noriyuki Genes (Basel) Article Tunicates or urochordates—comprising ascidians, larvaceans, and salps—are the only metazoans that can synthesize cellulose, a biological function usually associated with bacteria and plants but not animals. Tunicate cellulose or tunicine is a major component of the outer acellular coverage (tunic) of the entire body of these organisms. Previous studies have suggested that the prokaryotic cellulose synthase gene (CesA) was horizontally transferred into the genome of a tunicate ancestor. However, no convenient tools have been devised to determine whether only tunicates harbor CesA. ORTHOSCOPE is a recently developed tool used to identify orthologous genes and to examine the phylogenic relationship of molecules within major metazoan taxa. The present analysis with this tool revealed the presence of CesA orthologs in all sequenced tunicate genomes but an absence in other metazoan genomes. This supports an evolutionary origin of animal cellulose and provides insights into the evolution of this animal taxon. MDPI 2019-04-10 /pmc/articles/PMC6523144/ /pubmed/30974905 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes10040294 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Inoue, Jun
Nakashima, Keisuke
Satoh, Noriyuki
ORTHOSCOPE Analysis Reveals the Presence of the Cellulose Synthase Gene in All Tunicate Genomes but Not in Other Animal Genomes
title ORTHOSCOPE Analysis Reveals the Presence of the Cellulose Synthase Gene in All Tunicate Genomes but Not in Other Animal Genomes
title_full ORTHOSCOPE Analysis Reveals the Presence of the Cellulose Synthase Gene in All Tunicate Genomes but Not in Other Animal Genomes
title_fullStr ORTHOSCOPE Analysis Reveals the Presence of the Cellulose Synthase Gene in All Tunicate Genomes but Not in Other Animal Genomes
title_full_unstemmed ORTHOSCOPE Analysis Reveals the Presence of the Cellulose Synthase Gene in All Tunicate Genomes but Not in Other Animal Genomes
title_short ORTHOSCOPE Analysis Reveals the Presence of the Cellulose Synthase Gene in All Tunicate Genomes but Not in Other Animal Genomes
title_sort orthoscope analysis reveals the presence of the cellulose synthase gene in all tunicate genomes but not in other animal genomes
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6523144/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30974905
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/genes10040294
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