Expression patterns of murine antichymotrypsin-like genes reflect evolutionary divergence at the Serpina3 locus

Abstract

Members of the serpin (serine protease inhibitor) superfamily of genes are well represented in both human and murine genomes. In many cases it is possible to identify a definite ortholog on the basis of sequence similarity and by examining the surrounding genes at syntenic loci. We have recently examined the murine serpin locus at 12F1 and observed that the single human α1-antichymotrypsin gene is represented by 14 paralogs. It is also known that the single human α1-antitrypsin gene has five paralogs in the mouse. The forces driving this gene multiplication are unknown and there are no data describing the function of the various serpin gene products at the α1-antichymotrypsin multigene locus..