Institute of Life Science, Jiangsu University, Xuefu Road 301, Zhenjiang 212013, Jiangsu, PR China.
J Biomol Struct Dyn. 2011 Feb;28(4):535-44. doi: 10.1080/07391102.2011.10508593.
Sm proteins are members of a family of small proteins that are widespread in biosphere and found associated with RNA metabolism. To date, to our knowledge, only Arabidopsis SAD1 gene has been studied functionally in plant. In this study, 42 Sm genes are identified through comprehensive analysis in Arabidopsis. And a complete overview of this gene family is presented, including the gene structures, phylogeny, chromosome locations, selection pressure and expression. The results reveal that gene duplication contributes to the expansion of the Sm gene family in Arabidopsis genome, diverse expression patterns suggest their functional differentiation and divergence analysis indicates purifying selection as a key role in evolution. Our comparative genomics analysis of Sm genes will provide the first step towards the future experimental research on determining the functions of these genes.
Sm 蛋白是一类广泛存在于生物界并与 RNA 代谢相关的小蛋白家族成员。截至目前，据我们所知，只有拟南芥 SAD1 基因在植物中被进行了功能研究。在这项研究中，通过对拟南芥的全面分析，鉴定出了 42 个 Sm 基因。本文呈现了该基因家族的完整概述，包括基因结构、系统发育、染色体定位、选择压力和表达情况。结果表明，基因复制导致了拟南芥基因组中 Sm 基因家族的扩张，多样化的表达模式表明它们的功能分化，而分歧分析表明，纯化选择是进化中的关键作用。我们对 Sm 基因的比较基因组学分析将为未来确定这些基因功能的实验研究提供第一步。
