title: Agouti-related proteins (AGRPs) and agouti-signaling peptide (ASIP) in fish and chicken.
abstract: We performed an intensive search on sequence databases to identify orthologues of ASIP and AGRP peptides in a number of different species, revealing a number of genomic fragments coding for the C-terminal part of agouti-related motifs, different from annotated peptide sequences, including one fragment from chicken, two from zebrafish, two from Fugu (Takifugu rubripes), and three from Tetraodon (Tetraodon nigroviridis). We have thus shown for the first time that both AGRP and ASIP genes exist in many species in "lower vertebrates" and were most probably present in early stages of vertebrate evolution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, Biomedical Center, Sweden.
authors.forename: Janis
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Klovins
authors.forename: Helgi B
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Schiöth
mesh_terms: D054366:Agouti Signaling Protein; D054369:Agouti-Related Protein; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D002645:Chickens / Q000235:genetics*; D030541:Databases, Genetic; D005399:Fishes / Q000235:genetics*; D036341:Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011506:Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D054366:Agouti Signaling Protein; D054369:Agouti-Related Protein; D036341:Intercellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins; D011506:Proteins