title: Fine organization of Bombyx mori fibroin heavy chain gene.
abstract: The complete sequence of the Bombyx mori fibroin gene has been determined by means of combining a shotgun sequencing strategy with physical map-based sequencing procedures. It consists of two exons (67 and 15 750 bp, respectively) and one intron (971 bp). The fibroin coding sequence presents a spectacular organization, with a highly repetitive and G-rich (approximately 45%) core flanked by non-repetitive 5' and 3' ends. This repetitive core is composed of alternate arrays of 12 repetitive and 11 amorphous domains. The sequences of the amorphous domains are evolutionarily conserved and the repetitive domains differ from each other in length by a variety of tandem repeats of subdomains of approximately 208 bp which are reminiscent of the repetitive nucleosome organization. A typical composition of a subdomain is a cluster of repetitive units, Ua, followed by a cluster of units, Ub, (with a Ua:Ub ratio of 2:1) flanked by conserved boundary elements at the 3' end. Moreover some repeats are also perfectly conserved at the peptide level indicating that the evolutionary pressure is not identical along the sequence. A tentative model for the constitution and evolution of this unusual gene is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Institut de Génétique et Microbiologie and Laboratoire de Biologie Cellulaire 4, Université Paris-Sud et CNRS, 91405 Orsay Cedex, France.
authors.forename: C Z
authors.initials: CZ
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Confalonieri
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Medina
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zivanovic
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Esnault
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jacquet
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Janin
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Duguet
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Perasso
authors.forename: Z G
authors.initials: ZG
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D012831:Bombyx / Q000235:genetics*; D005091:Exons; D005349:Fibroins / Q000235:genetics*; D005796:Genes; D019476:Insect Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D007438:Introns; D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary; D020449:Repetitive Sequences, Amino Acid; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D047011:Silk; D014961:X-Ray Diffraction
chemical_list: D019476:Insect Proteins; D046911:Macromolecular Substances; D047011:Silk; D005349:Fibroins