Morphological evolution is driven both by coding sequence variation and by changes in regulatory sequences. However, how cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) evolve to generate entirely novel expression domains is largely unknown. Here, we reconstruct the evolutionary history of a lens enhancer located within a CRM that not only predates the lens, a vertebrate innovation, but bilaterian animals in gen...

A lambda clone carrying a rat DNA fragment of 11.9 kb was isolated from a rat gene library with total rat tRNA as a probe. Nucleotide sequence analysis revealed that the DNA fragment contained six tRNA genes, three for tRNAPro and three for tRNALys. Of the six genes all but one tRNAPro gene have the same polarity. Each tRNA gene is separated by a DNA region of 0.1 to 3.6 kb. The 5'-flanking reg...

The expression of Sprouty4 (Spry4), an intracellular FGF receptor antagonist, shows a temporally and spatially restricted pattern in embryonic lung and is induced by ERK signaling. To clarify the molecular mechanisms regulating Spry4 transcription, the genomic structure of the human Sprouty4 (hSpry4) gene was first determined by using the GenomeWalker kit. The hSpry4 gene spans > 14 kb and is o...

To investigate why somatic mutations are spatially restricted to a region around the rearranged V(D)J immunoglobulin gene, we compared the distribution of mutations flanking murine V gene segments that had rearranged next to either proximal or distal J gene segments. 124 nucleotide substitutions, nine deletions, and two insertions were identified in 32,481 bp of DNA flanking the coding regions ...

The human gamma-globin genes form part of a 5-kb tandem duplication within the beta-globin gene cluster on chromosome 11. Despite a high degree of identity between the two genes, we show that while the upstream Ggamma-globin gene terminates transcription efficiently, termination in the Agamma gene is inefficient. This is primarily due to the different strengths of the polyA signals of the two g...

MicroRNA (miRNA) are non-coding small RNA that regulate gene expression. MiR-328 is reported to influence breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP) expression in cancer cells. As a large inter-individual difference in BCRP levels is observed in various human tissues, the contribution of miR-328 to these differences is of interest. We hypothesized that DNA methylation in the miR-328 promoter regio...

SSR (simple sequence repeats) are ubiquitously abundant in genomes. In organellar mitochondrial genome of animals, its distribution, size dynamics and effectiveness for phylogenetic relationship have not been understood. Present investigation reveals organisation of SSR in genic and intergenic region, its length and repeat motif dynamics, extent of conservation of flanking regions, appropriaten...

Recent studies have indicated that ghrelin stimulates growth hormone release from the pituitary via the growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR). We have previously isolated two GHSR subtypes from the pituitary of the black seabream Acanthopagrus schlegeli. In the present study, we have cloned and characterized ghrelin from the same fish species at both the cDNA and gene levels. The full-len...