Vallesi, Adriana and Alimenti, Claudio and La Terza, Antonietta and Di Giuseppe, Graziano and Dini, Fernando and Luporini, Pierangelo (2009) Characterization of the pheromone gene family of an antarctic and arctic protozoan ciliate, Euplotes nobilii. Marine Genomics, 2/2009 (1). pp. 27-32. ISSN 1874-7787
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Abstract
SUMMARY: Allelic genes encoding water-borne signal proteins (pheromones) were amplified and sequenced from the somatic (macronuclear) sub-chromosomic genome of Antarctic and Arctic strains of the marine ciliate, Euplotes nobilii. Their open reading frames appeared to be specific for polypeptide sequences of 83 to 94 amino acids identifiable with cytoplasmic pheromone precursors (pre-pro-pheromones), requiring two proteolytic steps to remove the pre- and pro-segments and secrete the mature pheromones. Differently from most of the macronuclear genes that have so far been characterized from Euplotes and other hypotrich ciliates, the 5′ and 3′ non-coding regions of all the seven E. nobilii pheromone genes are much longer than the coding regions (621 to 700 versus 214 to 285 nucleotides), and the 5′ regions in particular show nearly identical sequences across the whole set of pheromone genes. These structural peculiarities of the noncoding regions are likely due to the presence of intron sequences and provide presumptive evidence that they are site of basic, conserved activities in the mechanism that regulates the expression of the E. nobilii pheromone genes.
Item Type: | Article |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | psychrophilic microorganisms, gene-sized DNA molecules, water-soluble signal proteins, sub-chromosomic ciliate genomes |
Subjects: | Area05 - Scienze biologiche > BIO/05 - Zoologia Area05 - Scienze biologiche > BIO/19 - Microbiologia generale |
Divisions: | Dipartimenti (until 2012) > DIPARTIMENTO DI BIOLOGIA |
Depositing User: | Dott. Graziano Di Giuseppe |
Date Deposited: | 03 Aug 2009 |
Last Modified: | 20 Dec 2010 11:50 |
URI: | http://eprints.adm.unipi.it/id/eprint/614 |
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