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MBE Advance Access originally published online on October 25, 2006
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2007 24(1):281-287; doi:10.1093/molbev/msl161
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Research Articles

Morphological Change Caused by Loss of the Taxon-Specific Polyalanine Tract in Hoxd-13

Keiiti Anan*, Nobuaki Yoshida{dagger}, Yuki Kataoka{dagger}, Mitsuharu Sato{dagger}, Hirotake Ichise{dagger}, Makoto Nasu* and Shintaroh Ueda*

* Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan; and
{dagger} Laboratory of Gene Expression and Regulation, Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

E-mail: sueda{at}biol.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp.

Accepted for publication October 13, 2006.

Sequence comparison of Hoxd-13 among vertebrates revealed the presence of taxon-specific polyalanine tracts in amniotes. To investigate their function at the organismal level, we replaced the wild-type Hoxd-13 gene with one lacking the 15-residue polyalanine tract by using homologous recombination. Sesamoid bone formation in knock-in mice was different from that in the wild type; this was observed not only in the homozygotes but also in the heterozygotes. The present study provides the first direct evidence that taxon-specific homopolymeric amino acid repeats are involved in phenotypic diversification at the organismal level.

Key Words: homopolymeric amino acid repeats • polyalanine tract • Hoxd-13 • mouse model

Takashi Gojobori, Associate Editor


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