Assignment of human tryptophan hydroxylase locus to chromosome 11: gene duplication and translocation in evolution of aromatic amino acid hydroxylases.

A cDNA clone for rabbit tryptophan hydroxylase was used as a probe to identify human tryptophan hydroxylase gene fragments in a panel of hamster-human somatic cell hybrids and determine its chromosomal location in man. A single locus was identified for tryptophan hydroxylase on chromosome 11. Tryptophan hydroxylase is a member of the superfamily of pterin-dependent aromatic amino acid hydroxylases which includes tyrosine hydroxylase, located at 11p15.5-p15, and phenylalanine hydroxylase, located at 12q22-q24.1 in human. The locations of these genes and the evolutionary distance between their sequences suggest that at least three distinct genetic events have occurred during the evolution of the aromatic amino acid hydroxylase superfamily: two sequential gene duplications giving rise to the three distinct hydroxylase loci, and a translocation which separated the tryptophan and tyrosine hydroxylase loci on chromosome 11 from the phenylalanine hydroxylase locus on chromosome 12.