Segat Ludovica, Pontillo Alessandra, Milanese Michele, Tossi Alessandro, Crovella Sergio
Genetic Unit, IRCCS Burlo Garofolo and Department of Reproductive and Developmental Sciences, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy.
BMC Genomics. 2008 Mar 5;9:120. doi: 10.1186/1471-2164-9-120.
Hepcidin/LEAP-1 is an iron regulatory hormone originally identified as an antimicrobial peptide. As part of a systematic analysis of the evolution of host defense peptides in primates, we have sequenced the orthologous gene from 14 species of non-human primates.
The sequence of the mature peptide is highly conserved amongst all the analyzed species, being identical to the human one in great apes and gibbons, with a single residue conservative variation in Old-World monkeys and with few substitutions in New-World monkeys.
Our analysis indicates that hepcidin's role as a regulatory hormone, which involves interaction with a conserved receptor (ferroportin), may result in conservation over most of its sequence, with the exception of the stretch between residues 15 and 18, which in New-World monkeys (as well as in other mammals) shows a significant variation, possibly indicating that this structural region is involved in other functions.
铁调素/LEAP-1是一种最初被鉴定为抗菌肽的铁调节激素。作为对灵长类动物宿主防御肽进化的系统分析的一部分，我们对14种非人类灵长类动物的直系同源基因进行了测序。
在所有分析的物种中，成熟肽的序列高度保守，在大猩猩和长臂猿中与人的序列相同，在旧世界猴中有一个保守的单残基变异，在新世界猴中有少量替换。
我们的分析表明，铁调素作为一种调节激素的作用，涉及与保守受体（铁转运蛋白）的相互作用，可能导致其大部分序列保守，除了第15至18位残基之间的片段，在新世界猴（以及其他哺乳动物）中该片段显示出显著变异，这可能表明该结构区域参与其他功能。
