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Salamander Hox clusters contain repetitive DNA and expanded non-coding regions: a typical Hox structure for non-mammalian tetrapod vertebrates?

Human genomics | 2013

Hox genes encode transcription factors that regulate embryonic and post-embryonic developmental processes. The expression of Hox genes is regulated in part by the tight, spatial arrangement of conserved coding and non-coding sequences. The potential for evolutionary changes in Hox cluster structure is thought to be low among vertebrates; however, recent studies of a few non-mammalian taxa suggest greater variation than originally thought. Using next generation sequencing of large genomic fragments (>100 kb) from the red spotted newt (Notophthalamus viridescens), we found that the arrangement of Hox cluster genes was conserved relative to orthologous regions from other vertebrates, but the length of introns and intergenic regions varied. In particular, the distance between hoxd13 and hoxd11 is longer in newt than orthologous regions from vertebrate species with expanded Hox clusters and is predicted to exceed the length of the entire HoxD clusters (hoxd13-hoxd4) of humans, mice, and frogs. Many repetitive DNA sequences were identified for newt Hox clusters, including an enrichment of DNA transposon-like sequences relative to non-coding genomic fragments. Our results suggest that Hox cluster expansion and transposon accumulation are common features of non-mammalian tetrapod vertebrates.

Pubmed ID: 23561734 RIS Download

Antibodies used in this publication

None found

Associated grants

  • Agency: NIH HHS, United States
    Id: R24 OD010435
  • Agency: NIH HHS, United States
    Id: R24-OD010435
  • Agency: NEI NIH HHS, United States
    Id: EY-10540

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Ensembl (tool)

RRID:SCR_002344

Collection of genome databases for vertebrates and other eukaryotic species with DNA and protein sequence search capabilities. Used to automatically annotate genome, integrate this annotation with other available biological data and make data publicly available via web. Ensembl tools include BLAST, BLAT, BioMart and the Variant Effect Predictor (VEP) for all supported species.

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NCBI (tool)

RRID:SCR_006472

A portal to biomedical and genomic information. NCBI creates public databases, conducts research in computational biology, develops software tools for analyzing genome data, and disseminates biomedical information for the better understanding of molecular processes affecting human health and disease.

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RepeatMasker (tool)

RRID:SCR_012954

Software tool that screens DNA sequences for interspersed repeats and low complexity DNA sequences. The output of the program is a detailed annotation of the repeats that are present in the query sequence as well as a modified version of the query sequence in which all the annotated repeats have been masked (default: replaced by Ns). Currently over 56% of human genomic sequence is identified and masked by the program. Sequence comparisons in RepeatMasker are performed by one of several popular search engines including nhmmer, cross_match, ABBlast/WUBlast, RMBlast and Decypher. RepeatMasker makes use of curated libraries of repeats and currently supports Dfam ( profile HMM library ) and RepBase ( consensus sequence library ).

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RRID:SCR_002850

Portal that supports Ambystoma-related research and educational efforts. It is composed of several resources: Salamander Genome Project, Ambystoma EST Database, Ambystoma Gene Collection, Ambystoma Map and Marker Collection, Ambystoma Genetic Stock Center, and Ambystoma Research Coordination Network.

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RRID:SCR_006372

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