PUBLICATION

Divergent Wnt8a gene expression in teleosts

Authors
Mwafi, N., Beretta, C.A., Paolini, A., and Carl, M.
ID
ZDB-PUB-140321-52
Date
2014
Source
PLoS One   9(1): e85303 (Journal)
Registered Authors
Beretta, Carlo, Carl, Matthias, Paolini, Alessio
Keywords
none
MeSH Terms
  • Animals
  • Cytoskeletal Proteins/genetics
  • Cytoskeletal Proteins/metabolism*
  • Embryo, Nonmammalian/metabolism
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental/genetics
  • Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental/physiology
  • Oryzias/genetics
  • Oryzias/metabolism*
  • Wnt Proteins/genetics
  • Wnt Proteins/metabolism
  • Zebrafish
  • Zebrafish Proteins/genetics
  • Zebrafish Proteins/metabolism
PubMed
24465531 Full text @ PLoS One
Abstract

The analysis of genes in evolutionarily distant but morphologically similar species is of major importance to unravel the changes in genomes over millions of years, which led to gene silencing and functional diversification. We report the analysis of Wnt8a gene expression in the medakafish and provide a detailed comparison to other vertebrates. In all teleosts analyzed there are two paralogous Wnt8a copies. These show largely overlapping expression in the early developing zebrafish embryo, an evolutionarily distant relative of medaka. In contrast to zebrafish, we find that both maternal and zygotic expression of particularly one Wnt8a paralog has diverged in medaka. While Wnt8a1 expression is mostly conserved at early embryonic stages, the expression of Wnt8a2 differs markedly. In addition, both genes are distinctly expressed during organogenesis unlike the zebrafish homologs, which may hint at the emergence of functional diversification of Wnt8a ligands during evolution.

Genes / Markers
Probes
Figures
Show all Figures
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Antibodies
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping