Recent origin of a hominoid-specific splice form of neuropsin, a gene involved in learning and memory.
Neuropsin is a secreted-type serine protease involved in learning and memory. The type II splice form of neuropsin is abundantly expressed in the human brain but not in the mouse brain. We sequenced the type II-spliced region of neuropsin gene in humans and representative nonhuman primate species. Our comparative sequence analysis showed that only the hominoid species (humans and apes) have the intact open reading frame of the type II splice form, indicating that the type II neuropsin originated recently in the primate lineage about 18 MYA. Expression analysis using RT-PCR detected abundant expression of the type II form in the frontal lobe of the adult human brain, but no expression was detected in the brains of lesser apes and Old World monkeys, indicating that the type II form of neuropsin only became functional in recent time, and it might contribute to the progressive change of cognitive abilities during primate evolution.
Li
Yi
Y
Key Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, Yunnan, China.
Qian
Ya-ping
YP
Yu
Xiao-jing
XJ
Wang
Yin-qiu
YQ
Dong
Ding-gui
DG
Sun
Wei
W
Ma
Run-mei
RM
Su
Bing
B
D017398:Alternative Splicing; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism; D002520:Cercopithecidae; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005091:Exons; D006071:Gorilla gorilla; D015186:Hominidae; D006801:Humans; D007610:Kallikreins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D007858:Learning; D008568:Memory; D051379:Mice; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009474:Neurons / Q000378:metabolism; D016366:Open Reading Frames; D010802:Phylogeny; D011148:Pongo pygmaeus; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012689:Sequence Homology, Nucleic Acid; D013045:Species Specificity
C094799:KLK8 protein, human; D007610:Kallikreins