Katoh Yuriko, Katoh Masaru
M and M Medical BioInformatics, Hongo 113-0033, Japan.
Int J Oncol. 2005 Mar;26(3):835-40.
Drosophila wingless (wg), shaggy (sgg), armadillo (arm), legless (lgs), pygopus (pygo), pangolin (pan), and engrailed (en) are segment polarity genes implicated in Wg-Arm (WNT-beta-catenin) pathway. Drosophila lgs encodes nuclear scaffold protein functioning as positive regulator for Wg-Arm pathway. Cancer-associated genes BCL9 and BCL9L are human homologs for Drosophila lgs. Here, we identified and characterized rat Bcl9l gene by using bioinformatics. Rat Bcl9l gene, consisting of eight exons, was located within AC124034.4 and AC105645.5 genome sequences. Bcl9l gene was linked to Blr1 gene at rat chromosome 8q22 in the tail-to-tail manner with an interval less than 2 kb. Rat Bcl9l gene was found to encode a 1494-aa Bcl9l protein, which showed 97.7% and 94.2% total-amino-acid identity with mouse Bcl9l and human BCL9L, respectively. B9H1-B9H6 domains, originally identified as conserved regions among mammalian BCL9 and BCL9L homologs, were also identified within rat Bcl9l. B9H1 and B9H2 domains corresponded to HD1 and HD2 domains of Drosophila lgs, functioning as binding regions for Pygo and Arm, respectively. B9H4 domain was characterized by multiple Ser-Pro repeats. Thr 954 within B9H4 domain of rat Bcl9l was conserved in mammalian BCL9 and BCL9L homologs. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that mammalian Bcl9l homologs were more related to human BCL9 than to Drosophila lgs. This is the first report on rat Bcl9l gene.
果蝇的无翅基因(wg)、蓬乱基因(sgg)、犰狳基因(arm)、无腿基因(lgs)、矮胖基因(pygo)、穿山甲基因(pan)和 engrailed 基因(en)是与 Wg-Arm(WNT-β-连环蛋白)信号通路相关的体节极性基因。果蝇的 lgs 基因编码核支架蛋白,作为 Wg-Arm 信号通路的正向调节因子发挥作用。与癌症相关的基因 BCL9 和 BCL9L 是果蝇 lgs 基因在人类中的同源基因。在此,我们利用生物信息学方法鉴定并表征了大鼠的 Bcl9l 基因。大鼠的 Bcl9l 基因由八个外显子组成,位于 AC124034.4 和 AC105645.5 基因组序列中。Bcl9l 基因与大鼠 8 号染色体 8q22 处的 Blr1 基因以尾对尾的方式相连,间隔小于 2 kb。研究发现大鼠的 Bcl9l 基因编码一种 1494 个氨基酸的 Bcl9l 蛋白,该蛋白与小鼠的 Bcl9l 和人类的 BCL9L 的总氨基酸同一性分别为 97.7%和 94.2%。最初在哺乳动物 BCL9 和 BCL9L 同源物中鉴定出的保守区域 B9H1 - B9H6 结构域,在大鼠的 Bcl9l 基因中也被鉴定出来。B9H1 和 B9H2 结构域分别对应果蝇 lgs 基因的 HD1 和 HD2 结构域,分别作为与 Pygo 和 Arm 的结合区域发挥作用。B9H4 结构域的特征是含有多个 Ser-Pro 重复序列。大鼠 Bcl9l 基因 B9H4 结构域内的苏氨酸 954 在哺乳动物 BCL9 和 BCL9L 同源物中是保守的。系统发育分析表明,哺乳动物的 Bcl9l 同源物与人类的 BCL9 的关系比与果蝇的 lgs 基因的关系更为密切。这是关于大鼠 Bcl9l 基因的首次报道。