A tandem gene duplication followed by recruitment of a retrotransposon created the paralogous bucentaur gene (bcntp97) in the ancestral ruminant.
Retrotransposable element-1 (RTE-1) is a class of long interspersed nucleotide elements that contain in its open reading frame an apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease domain (AP-END) and a reverse transcriptase domain. Ruminants have a clade-specific RTE-1 (BovB/RTE). The bovine bcnt gene (bucentaur or craniofacial developmental protein 1) has a duplicated paralog (bcntp97) in tandem that recruited an AP-END of BovB/RTE as a coding exon (RTE exon). We obtained sequence of the bcnt region from several animals and showed that other ruminants also have the bcntp97 with a conserved RTE exon while camels and pigs do not. Genomic Southern analysis showed that camels and pigs have multiple bcnt-related sequences but not BovB/RTE which bovines and lesser mouse deer have abundantly. These results indicate that the bcnt gene duplication followed by the creation of bcntp97 including recruitment of the RTE exon occurred in the ancestral ruminant about 55 MYA. The indication of time frame is supported by a phylogenetic analysis. Taken together with a result of differential tissue expression of the two bcnt paralogs, we conclude that bcntp97 was created concurrently with the early radiation of BovB/RTE in an ancestral ruminant and then acquired a novel function.
Iwashita
Shintaro
S
Mitsubishi Kagaku Institute of Life Sciences (MITILS), Tokyo, Japan. siwast@libra.ls.m-kagaku.co.jp
Ueno
Sadao
S
Nakashima
Kentaro
K
Song
Si-Young
SY
Ohshima
Kenshiro
K
Tanaka
Kazuaki
K
Endo
Hideki
H
Kimura
Junpei
J
Kurohmaru
Masamichi
M
Fukuta
Katsuhiro
K
David
Lior
L
Osada
Naoki
N
D000818:Animals; D002162:Camelus / Q000235:genetics; D002417:Cattle; D003670:Deer / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D020440:Gene Duplication; D020131:Genes, Duplicate; D006801:Humans; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D010750:Phosphoproteins / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D011506:Proteins / Q000235:genetics*; D018626:Retroelements / Q000235:genetics*; D012418:Ruminants / Q000235:genetics*; D013552:Swine / Q000235:genetics
C104422:CFDP1 protein, human; D009687:Nuclear Proteins; D010750:Phosphoproteins; D011506:Proteins; D018626:Retroelements