Fujisawa Toshitaka, Hayakawa Eisuke
Department of Developmental Genetics, National Institute of Genetics, Mishima, Japan.
Int J Dev Biol. 2012;56(6-8):543-50. doi: 10.1387/ijdb.113477tf.
Peptides play a number of crucial roles as signaling molecules in metazoans. In order to elaborate a more complete picture of the roles played by peptides in a single organism, we launched the "Hydra Peptide Project". For this project, we used Hydra magnipapillata, a species belonging to Cnidaria, one of the most basal metazoan phyla, and using a peptidomic approach, we systematically identified a number of peptide signaling molecules, their encoding genes and their functions. In this article, we report the peptides isolated from Hydra and other cnidarians, as well as their synthesis, processing and release from the cells to the target. Possible peptide signaling pathways are overviewed and finally we discuss the evolution of the peptide signaling system.
在多细胞动物中，肽作为信号分子发挥着许多关键作用。为了更全面地阐述肽在单一生物体中所起的作用，我们启动了“水螅肽项目”。对于该项目，我们使用了巨型乳头水螅，它属于刺胞动物门，是最基础的多细胞动物门类之一。通过肽组学方法，我们系统地鉴定了许多肽信号分子、它们的编码基因及其功能。在本文中，我们报告了从水螅和其他刺胞动物中分离出的肽，以及它们的合成、加工过程和从细胞释放到靶标的过程。我们概述了可能的肽信号通路，最后讨论了肽信号系统的进化。
