Divergence and heterogeneity of the histone gene repeating units in the Drosophila melanogaster species subgroup.
The repeating units of the histone gene cluster containing the H1, H2A, H2B and H4 genes were amplified by PCR from the Drosophila melanogaster species subgroup, i.e., D. yakuba, D. erecta, D. sechellia, D. mauritiana, D. teissieri and D. orena. The PCR products were cloned and their nucleotide sequences of about 4.6-4.8kbp were determined to elucidate the mechanism of molecular evolution of the histone gene family. The heterogeneity among the histone gene repeating units was 0.6% and 0.7% for D. yakuba and D. sechellia, respectively, indicating the same level of heterogeneity as in the H3 gene region of D. melanogaster. Divergence of the genes among species even in the most closely related ones was much greater than the heterogeneity among family members, indicating a concerted mode of evolution for the histone gene repeating units. Among the species in the D. melanogaster species subgroup, the histone gene regions as well as 3rd codon position of the coding region showed nearly the same GC contents. These results suggested that the previous conclusion on analysis of the H3 gene regions, the gene family evolution in a concerted fashion, holds true for the whole histone gene repeating unit.
Kakita
Mitsuru
M
Laboratory of Adaptive Evolution, Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokushima, Japan.
Shimizu
Tsunenori
T
Emoto
Masami
M
Nagai
Mariya
M
Takeguchi
Miyo
M
Hosono
Yuuki
Y
Kume
Nahoko
N
Ozawa
Toshikatsu
T
Ueda
Mayuko
M
Bhuiyan
Md Shaidul Islam
MS
Matsuo
Yoshinori
Y
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D019943:Amino Acid Substitution; D000818:Animals; D001482:Base Composition; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D004331:Drosophila melanogaster / Q000235:genetics*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006657:Histones / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D005810:Multigene Family; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D010802:Phylogeny; D016415:Sequence Alignment
D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D006657:Histones