Journal article

Expansion of the Ago gene family in the teleost clade

L McFarlane, T Svingen, I Braasch, P Koopman, M Schartl, D Wilhelm

Development Genes and Evolution | SPRINGER | Published : 2011

Abstract

AGO proteins are universal effectors of eukaryotic small RNA-directed regulatory pathways. In this study, we used a comparative genomics approach to explore the AGO sub-family in the teleost clade. We identified five Ago homologues in teleost genomes, one more than encoded in other vertebrate clades. The additional teleost homologue was preserved most likely due to the differential retention of regulatory elements following the fish-specific genome duplication event that occurred approximately 350 million years ago. Analysis of all five Ago genomic loci in teleosts revealed that orthologues contain specific, conserved sequence elements in non-coding regions indicating that the teleost Ago pa..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung


Funding Acknowledgements

We thank Christine Neyt for technical assistance. We are grateful for grant support by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC grant number 631460) and the Australian Research Council (ARC grant number DP0879913). D. W. is a CDA Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC grant number 519737). This research was supported by the Invasive Animal Cooperative Research Centre and the Australian Zebrafish Phenomics Facility (NHMRC Grant Number 455871). I. B. was supported by a Feodor Lynen Postdoctoral Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany).