title: Radiation and functional diversification of alpha keratins during early vertebrate evolution.
abstract: The conquest of land was arguably one of the most fundamental ecological transitions in vertebrates and entailed significant changes in skin structure and appendages to cope with the new environment. In extant tetrapods, the rigidity of the integument is largely created by type I and type II keratins, which are structural proteins essential in forming a strong cytoplasmic network. It is expected that such proteins have undergone fundamental changes in both stem and crown tetrapods. Here, we integrate genomic, phylogenetic, and expression data in a comprehensive study on the early evolution and functional diversification of tetrapod keratins. Our analyses reveal that all type I and type II tetrapod keratins evolved from only two genes that were present in the ancestor of extant vertebrates. Subsequently, the water-to-land transition in the stem lineage of tetrapods was associated with a major radiation and functional diversification of keratin genes. These duplications acquired functions that serve rigidity in integumental hard structures and were the prime for subsequent independent keratin diversification in tetrapod lineages.
authors: Biology Department, Unit of Ecology and Systematics, Amphibian Evolution Lab, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium.
authors: Wim
authors: W
authors: Vandebergh
authors: Franky
authors: F
authors: Bossuyt
mesh_terms: D000220:Adaptation, Biological / Q000235:genetics*; D000818:Animals; D001499:Bayes Theorem; D019295:Computational Biology; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D020224:Expressed Sequence Tags; D020440:Gene Duplication / Q000235:genetics; D007633:Keratins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism*; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010802:Phylogeny; D013045:Species Specificity; D014714:Vertebrates / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D007633:Keratins