The Institute of Bioinformatics, College of Life Sciences, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu, 241000, China.
State Key Laboratory of Genetic Resources and Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650000, China.
Genes (Basel). 2019 Apr 22;10(4):314. doi: 10.3390/genes10040314.
(Japanese quail) has been extensively used as a model animal for biological studies. The gene family, which was systematically characterized by a high-mobility group (HMG-box) in many animal species, encodes transcription factors that play central roles during multiple developmental processes. However, genome-wide investigations on the gene family in birds are scarce. In the current study, we first performed a genome-wide study to explore the gene family in galliform birds. Based on available genomic sequences retrieved from the NCBI database, we focused on the global identification of the gene family in and other species in Galliformes, and the evolutionary relationships of genes. In our result, a total of 35 genes in seven groups were identified in the genome. Our results also revealed that dispersed gene duplications contributed the most to the expansion of the gene family in Galliform birds. Evolutionary analyses indicated that genes are an ancient gene family, and strong purifying selections played key roles in the evolution of genes of More interestingly, we observed that most genes exhibited highly embryo-specific expression in both gonads. Our findings provided new insights into the molecular function and phylogeny of gene family in birds.
（鹌鹑）被广泛用作生物学研究的模式动物。基因家族在许多动物物种中具有高迁移率族（HMG 盒）的特征，编码在多个发育过程中起核心作用的转录因子。然而，鸟类中关于基因家族的全基因组研究却很少。在本研究中，我们首先进行了一项全基因组研究，以探索禽类中的基因家族。基于从 NCBI 数据库中检索到的可用基因组序列，我们专注于在和其他禽类物种中对基因家族进行全面鉴定，并研究基因的进化关系。在我们的研究结果中，在基因组中鉴定出了 7 个群组的 35 个基因。我们的研究结果还表明，分散的基因复制对禽类基因家族的扩张贡献最大。进化分析表明，基因是一个古老的基因家族，强烈的纯化选择在基因的进化中发挥了关键作用。更有趣的是，我们观察到大多数基因在两性生殖腺中都表现出高度的胚胎特异性表达。我们的研究结果为鸟类基因家族的分子功能和系统发育提供了新的见解。
