title: A common ancestor of the mammalian transcription factors TCF-1 and TCF-1 alpha/LEF-1 expressed in chicken T cells.
abstract: Several mammalian T cell-specific transcription factors have been cloned recently. Two of these, TCF-1 and TCF-1 alpha/LEF-1, display a moderate level of overall sequence similarity, and contain virtually identical versions of a novel type of DNA-binding domain, the HMG box. To study evolutionary aspects of the TCF transcription factors in relation to lymphoid differentiation, we have isolated chicken TCF clones from a spleen cDNA library. Low-stringency screening with human probes as well as a polymerase chain reaction-aided strategy resulted in the cloning of a single chicken TCF (chTCF) gene. Sequence comparison revealed that chTCF contained a TCF-1 alpha-like N terminus, and a TCF-1-like C terminus. Furthermore, TCF-1 and TCF-1 alpha were more homologous to chTCF than to each other. We postulate that chTCF is the direct descendant of a single ancestral gene, which has been duplicated in mammals to yield TCF-1 and TCF-1 alpha.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology, University Hospital, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gastrop
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hoevenagel
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Young
authors.forename: H C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Clevers
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002645:Chickens; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000737:chemistry*; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000032:analysis* / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D014157:Transcription Factors