QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s):
Home     Help     Feedback     Subscriptions     Archive     Search     Table of Contents

First published online February 18, 2009
doi: 10.1242/10.1242/jcs.030205

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Hofmann, W. A. Articles by de Lanerolle, P. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Hofmann, W. A. Articles by de Lanerolle, P. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Ancient animal ancestry for nuclear myosin

¹ Department of Physiology and Biophysics, College of Medicine, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60612, USA
² Centre for Eukaryotic Evolutionary Microbiology, School of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Devon EX4 4QD, UK

^* Authors for correspondence (e-mail: T.A.Richards{at}exeter.ac.uk; primal{at}uic.edu)

Accepted 3 November 2008

The identification of nuclear myosin I (NMI) has raised the possibility that myosin might have had an early functional role in the eukaryotic nucleus. To investigate this possibility, we examined the molecular evolution of the vertebrate myosin-I proteins. We found that myosin I has undergone at least five duplication events in the common ancestor of the vertebrates (vertebrate-specific duplications), leading to nine myosin-I vertebrate gene families, followed by two additional myosin-I duplication events in the lineage leading to modern fish. This expansion suggests a large-scale adaptive radiation in myosin-I function in an early phase of vertebrate evolution. The branching order of the evolutionary tree suggests that the functional role of NMI predates this expansion. More specifically, in the tunicate Ciona intestinalis, we found a myosin-I protein that localizes to the nucleus, but that branches on phylogenetic trees before the duplication that led to vertebrate myosin IC and myosin IH. This relationship suggests that the common ancestor of these three proteins encoded a nuclear isoform and that the localization of myosin I to the nucleus predates the origin of the vertebrates. Thus, a functional role for NMI appears to have been present at an early stage of animal evolution prior to the rise of both myosin IC and the vertebrates, as NMI was present in the last common ancestor of vertebrates and tunicates.

Key words: Evolution, Transcription, Nuclear myosin I, Molecular motors, Myosin gene family

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				W. A. Hofmann, T. A. Richards, and P. de Lanerolle Ancient animal ancestry for nuclear myosin Development, March 15, 2009; 136(6): e607 - e607. [Full Text]