title: New insights into the evolution of metazoan tyrosinase gene family.
abstract: Tyrosinases, widely distributed among animals, plants and fungi, are involved in the biosynthesis of melanin, a pigment that has been exploited, in the course of evolution, to serve different functions. We conducted a deep evolutionary analysis of tyrosinase family amongst metazoa, thanks to the availability of new sequenced genomes, assessing that tyrosinases (tyr) represent a distinctive feature of all the organisms included in our study and, interestingly, they show an independent expansion in most of the analyzed phyla. Tyrosinase-related proteins (tyrp), which derive from tyr but show distinct key residues in the catalytic domain, constitute an invention of chordate lineage. In addition we here reported a detailed study of the expression territories of the ascidian Ciona intestinalis tyr and tyrps. Furthermore, we put efforts in the identification of the regulatory sequences responsible for their expression in pigment cell lineage. Collectively, the results reported here enlarge our knowledge about the tyrosinase gene family as valuable resource for understanding the genetic components involved in pigment cells evolution and development.
authors.affiliation: Cellular and Developmental Biology Department, Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Villa Comunale, Napoli, Italy.
authors.forename: Rosaria
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Esposito
authors.forename: Salvatore
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: D'Aniello
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Squarzoni
authors.forename: Maria Rosa
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Pezzotti
authors.forename: Filomena
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ristoratore
authors.forename: Antonietta
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Spagnuolo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001665:Binding Sites; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D002816:Chordata, Nonvertebrate / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D002938:Ciona intestinalis / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics*; D017124:Conserved Sequence; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D015870:Gene Expression; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D015971:Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic; D006801:Humans; D014442:Monophenol Monooxygenase / Q000235:genetics*; D010802:Phylogeny; D017434:Protein Structure, Tertiary; D012045:Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid; D012615:Sea Anemones / Q000201:enzymology / Q000235:genetics; D026801:Synteny; D014157:Transcription Factors / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors; D014442:Monophenol Monooxygenase