title: Genome wide identification, phylogeny and expression of zinc transporter genes in common carp.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Zinc is an essential trace element in organisms, which serves as a cofactor for hundreds of enzymes that are involved in many pivotal biological processes including growth, development, reproduction and immunity. Therefore, the homeostasis of zinc in the cell is fundamental. The zinc transporter gene family is a large gene family that encodes proteins which regulate the movement of zinc across cellular and intracellular membranes. However, studies on teleost zinc transporters are mainly limited to model species.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We identified a set of 37 zinc transporters in common carp genome, including 17 from SLC30 family (ZnT), and 20 from SLC39 family (ZIP). Phylogenetic and syntenic analysis revealed that most of the zinc transporters are highly conserved, though recent gene duplication and gene losses do exist. Through examining the copy number of zinc transporter genes across several vertebrate genomes, thirteen zinc transporters in common carp are found to have undergone the gene duplications, including SLC30A1, SLC30A2, SLC30A5, SLC30A7, SLC30A9, SLC30A10, SLC39A1, SLC39A3, SLC39A4, SLC39A5, SLC39A6, SLC39A7 and SLC39A9. The expression patterns of all zinc transporters were established in various tissues, including blood, brain, gill, heart, intestine, liver, muscle, skin, spleen and kidney, and showed that most of the zinc transporters were ubiquitously expressed, indicating the critical role of zinc transporters in common carp.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To some extent, examination of gene families with detailed phylogenetic or orthology analysis could verify the authenticity and accuracy of assembly and annotation of the recently published common carp whole genome sequences. The gene families are also considered as a unique source for evolutionary studies. Moreover, the whole set of common carp zinc transporters provides an important genomic resource for future biochemical, toxicological and physiological studies of zinc in teleost.
authors.affiliation: CAFS Key Laboratory of Aquatic Genomics and Beijing Key Laboratory of Fishery Biotechnology, Centre for Applied Aquatic Genomics, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Beijing, 100141, China.
authors.forename: Yanliang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: CAFS Key Laboratory of Aquatic Genomics and Beijing Key Laboratory of Fishery Biotechnology, Centre for Applied Aquatic Genomics, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Beijing, 100141, China; College of Life Sciences, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, 300387, China.
authors.forename: Songhao
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: CAFS Key Laboratory of Aquatic Genomics and Beijing Key Laboratory of Fishery Biotechnology, Centre for Applied Aquatic Genomics, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Beijing, 100141, China.
authors.forename: Shuaisheng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: College of Life Sciences, Tianjin Normal University, Tianjin, 300387, China.
authors.forename: Jinsheng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: CAFS Key Laboratory of Aquatic Genomics and Beijing Key Laboratory of Fishery Biotechnology, Centre for Applied Aquatic Genomics, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Beijing, 100141, China.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Xu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002347:Carps / Q000235:genetics*; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D017353:Gene Deletion; D018628:Gene Dosage / Q000235:genetics; D015870:Gene Expression; D010802:Phylogeny; D015032:Zinc / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D002352:Carrier Proteins; C017800:zinc-binding protein; D015032:Zinc