EST analysis of mRNAs expressed in neurula of Chinese amphioxus.
Amphioxus, a cephalochordate, is the closest living relative to the vertebrates. In order to investigate the molecular mechanisms of the early embryogenesis of amphioxus, we constructed a neurula embryo cDNA library of Chinese amphioxus (Branchiostoma belcheri tsingtauense) and generated 5235 expressed sequenced tags in the present study. The initial ESTs consisted of 638 clusters and 1855 singletons, which revealed approximately 2493 unique genes in the data set. Of these sequences, 35.52% ESTs matched to known genes, 12.76% matched to other ESTs, and 51.71% had no match to any known sequences in GenBank. Interestingly we found homologous genes related to neural development and human disease. Bioinformatic analysis showed the direct evidence that the gene homologue found only in vertebrates in previous studies also exists in the amphioxus genome. This study provides a preliminary view of the gene information involved in the development of neurula embryos of Chinese amphioxus and helps our understanding of vertebrate evolution at gene level.
Mou
Chun-yan
CY
Department of Biochemistry, State Open Laboratory for Marine Functional Genomics, Guangzhou Center for Bioinformatics, College of Life Sciences, Zhongshan (Sun Yat-Sen) University, 135 Xingangxi Road, 510275, Guangzhou, PR China.
Zhang
Shi-cui
SC
Lin
Jiang-hai
JH
Yang
Wen-li
WL
Wu
Wen-yan
WY
Wei
Jian-wen
JW
Wu
Xiao-kun
XK
Du
Jing-chun
JC
Fu
Zhi-yan
ZY
Ye
Lan-ting
LT
Lu
Yang
Y
Xie
Xiao-jin
XJ
Wang
Yi-liang
YL
Xu
An-long
AL
D000818:Animals; D002816:Chordata, Nonvertebrate / Q000235:genetics*; D019295:Computational Biology; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000378:metabolism; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D015723:Gene Library; D012333:RNA, Messenger / Q000378:metabolism; D012984:Software
D018076:DNA, Complementary; D012333:RNA, Messenger