The involucrin gene of Old-World monkeys and other higher primates: synapomorphies and parallelisms resulting from the same gene-altering mechanism.
The involucrin gene of platyrrhines and hominoids contains a segment of 10-codon repeats which were added vectorially at the same site in the coding region. We have now cloned and sequenced the involucrin gene of four cercopithecoid monkeys--two macaques (mulatta and fascicularis) and two Cercopithecus monkeys (aethiops and hamlyni). Each gene contains a similar segment of short repeats; some of these were added in a common anthropoid lineage, others were added in a common catarrhine lineage, and still others were added in a common macaque or Cercopithecus lineage. Repeats added before a lineage diverges become synapomorphies in the sister taxa resulting from the divergence. Repeats added independently in different diverged lineages become parallelisms. The synapomorphies are the result of the action of a targeted duplication mechanism acting in a common ancestral lineage, but the parallelisms are the result of the same duplication mechanism transmitted to successively divergent sublineages and acting independently in each.
Djian
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P
Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.
Green
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H
D000483:Alleles; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D002520:Cercopithecidae / Q000235:genetics*; D004247:DNA; D005091:Exons; D006801:Humans; D008252:Macaca fascicularis / Q000235:genetics; D008253:Macaca mulatta / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009154:Mutation; D011323:Primates / Q000235:genetics*; D011498:Protein Precursors / Q000235:genetics*; D012091:Repetitive Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D015183:Restriction Mapping; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid
D011498:Protein Precursors; C032253:involucrin; D004247:DNA