title: The vasa locus in zebrafish: multiple RGG boxes from duplications.
abstract: Vasa is the most extensively characterized germ cell-specific marker in metazoans. We determined the sequence of the zebrafish vasa locus, which - together with the flanking regions - is 25 kb long. It contains 26 + 1 exons, with an average length of 83 bp. The 5' end of zebrafish vasa is rich in repeats; it includes a peculiar tandem repeat with three units spanning a total of eight exons, each unit containing several tandemly arranged RNA-binding motifs (RGG boxes). The presence of various, nonmicrosatellite type repeats in vasa seems to be universal among the species studied, and could have functional importance during the evolution of the gene, due to the increase in the number of RGG boxes located in these repeats. Analysis of vasa transcripts in zebrafish identified numerous isoforms resulting from alternative splicing (seven) and polyadenylation (four). Mapping to two radiation hybrid panels strengthened the position of the gene on LG10 of zebrafish.
authors.affiliation: Reproductive Genomics Group, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, Singapore.
authors.forename: Richárd
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bártfai
authors.forename: László
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Orbán
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D001665:Binding Sites; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D053487:DEAD-box RNA Helicases; D020440:Gene Duplication; D006801:Humans; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D020033:Protein Isoforms / Q000235:genetics; D012313:RNA / Q000378:metabolism; D020365:RNA Helicases / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017423:Sequence Analysis, RNA; D015027:Zebrafish / Q000235:genetics*; D029961:Zebrafish Proteins
chemical_list: D020033:Protein Isoforms; D029961:Zebrafish Proteins; D012313:RNA; C498288:DDX4 protein, human; C498289:ddx4 protein, zebrafish; D053487:DEAD-box RNA Helicases; D020365:RNA Helicases