Ancient gene duplication and domain shuffling in the animal cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase family.

The animal cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDEs) comprise at least seven subtypes, PDE1-7, which differ from each other in domain organization and primary function, and they diverged from an ancestral gene by gene duplication and domain shuffling during animal evolution. To obtain rough estimates for the divergence times of these subtypes, cloning of PDE cDNAs from Ephydatia fluviatilis (freshwater sponge) by RT-PCR was carried out. We obtained four cDNAs, EFPDE1, EFPDE2, EFPDE3, and EFPDE4, which are possibly homologs of the vertebrate PDE1, PDE2, PDE3, and PDE4, respectively, judging from the sequence similarity, domain organization, and branching pattern in the phylogenetic tree. The phylogenetic tree of the PDE family revealed that most gene duplications and domain shufflings that gave rise to different subtypes had been completed in the early evolution of animals before the separation of sponges and eumetazoans.