title: [Characterization of the beta-actin gene of the rice field eel and its phylogeny in fish].
abstract: Beta-actin is a member of the actin family of genes,which play important roles in maintaining cytoskeletal structure, cell motility, cell division, intracellular movements and contractile processes. We report here the identification of a beta-actin cDNA of the rice field eel,a teleost fish with a characteristic of natural sex reversal. The cDNA sequence of this gene was 1860 bp in length,encoding a 375 amino acid protein. Amino acid identities of the beta-actin between the rice field eel and other vertebrates including human, chicken, and other fishes, were more than 98%. RT-PCR showed expression of the rice field eel beta-actin in testis, ovotestis, ovary, heart, liver, spleen and brain,suggesting a ubiquitous expression pattern. Phylogenetic tree including all beta-actin cds of teleost fishes was constructed,which suggested consistently that teleost beta-actin can be classified into four types,but no fish has been found contains all the four types of beta-actin gene in its genome. The results that suggest lineage-specific beta-actin loss might happen in the radical evolution of teleost fishes.
authors.affiliation: Center for Developmental Biology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China.
authors.forename: Lai-Xin
authors.initials: LX
authors.lastname: Xia
authors.forename: Han-Hua
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Yi-Qing
authors.initials: YQ
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Rong-Jia
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000199:Actins / Q000235:genetics*; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D004524:Eels / Q000235:genetics*; D005260:Female; D005399:Fishes / Q000235:genetics; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D008099:Liver / Q000378:metabolism; D008297:Male; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010053:Ovary / Q000378:metabolism; D010802:Phylogeny; D020133:Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D013737:Testis / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000199:Actins; D018076:DNA, Complementary