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Logo of bmcgenoBioMed Centralsearchsubmit a manuscriptregisterthis articleBMC Genomics
 
BMC Genomics. 2009; 10: 17.
Published online 2009 January 12. doi:  10.1186/1471-2164-10-17
PMCID: PMC2656531
Copyright © 2009 Matsui et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
Expression profiles of urbilaterian genes uniquely shared between honey bee and vertebrates
Toshiaki Matsui,1 Toshiyuki Yamamoto,1 Stefan Wyder,2 Evgeny M Zdobnov,2,3,4 and Tatsuhiko Kadowakicorresponding author5
1Department of Applied Biological Sciences, School of Agricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Chikusa, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
2Department of Genetic Medicine and Development, University of Geneva Medical School, 1 rue Michel-Servet, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
3Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, 1 rue Michel-Servet, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland
4Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, SW7 2AZ, London, UK
5Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Chikusa, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan
corresponding authorCorresponding author.
Toshiaki Matsui: matsu_toshi_/at/msn.com; Toshiyuki Yamamoto: bibibibi-binchan/at/docomo.ne.jp; Stefan Wyder: Stefan.Wyder/at/medecine.unige.ch; Evgeny M Zdobnov: zdobnov/at/medecine.unige.ch; Tatsuhiko Kadowaki: emi/at/nuagr1.agr.nagoya-u.ac.jp
Received August 8, 2008; Accepted January 12, 2009.
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.
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Abstract
Background
Large-scale comparison of metazoan genomes has revealed that a significant fraction of genes of the last common ancestor of Bilateria (Urbilateria) is lost in each animal lineage. This event could be one of the underlying mechanisms involved in generating metazoan diversity. However, the present functions of these ancient genes have not been addressed extensively. To understand the functions and evolutionary mechanisms of such ancient Urbilaterian genes, we carried out comprehensive expression profile analysis of genes shared between vertebrates and honey bees but not with the other sequenced ecdysozoan genomes (honey bee-vertebrate specific, HVS genes) as a model.
Results
We identified 30 honey bee and 55 mouse HVS genes. Many HVS genes exhibited tissue-selective expression patterns; intriguingly, the expression of 60% of honey bee HVS genes was found to be brain enriched, and 24% of mouse HVS genes were highly expressed in either or both the brain and testis. Moreover, a minimum of 38% of mouse HVS genes demonstrated neuron-enriched expression patterns, and 62% of them exhibited expression in selective brain areas, particularly the forebrain and cerebellum. Furthermore, gene ontology (GO) analysis of HVS genes predicted that 35% of genes are associated with DNA transcription and RNA processing.
Conclusion
These results suggest that HVS genes include genes that are biased towards expression in the brain and gonads. They also demonstrate that at least some of Urbilaterian genes retained in the specific animal lineage may be selectively maintained to support the species-specific phenotypes.
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