title: Genome-wide analysis of the globin gene family of C. elegans.
abstract: The aim of our study was to annotate sequences for 35 putative globins from the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. All these proteins are expressed, but seven of these differ from the gene predictions in Wormbase. The entire polypeptide sequences for 31 genes and the core globin domain of four proteins were confirmed or corrected. All core globin domains were aligned manually following a procedure that was designed to fit the putative sequences to the crystal structure based alignment of 56 known globin crystal structures. Neighbor-joining analysis of the resulting alignment showed that the majority of these globins are very divergent from each other, possibly suggesting a long evolutionary divergence. The surprisingly high number and low sequence conservation of putative globins in this small organism urges a detailed functional analysis.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology and Centre for Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution, Ghent University, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hoogewijs
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Geuens
authors.forename: Sylvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dewilde
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Moens
authors.forename: Andy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vierstraete
authors.forename: Serge
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Vinogradov
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vanfleteren
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000235:genetics*; D016678:Genome; D023281:Genomics; D005914:Globins / Q000235:genetics*; D011544:Pseudogenes; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D005914:Globins