Skip Navigation


MBE Advance Access originally published online on December 3, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2009 26(3):487-490; doi:10.1093/molbev/msn278
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
26/3/487    most recent
msn278v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Wang, J.
Right arrow Articles by Venkatesh, B.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Wang, J.
Right arrow Articles by Venkatesh, B.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. 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

Letters

Large Number of Ultraconserved Elements Were Already Present in the Jawed Vertebrate Ancestor

Jianli Wang1, Alison P. Lee1, Rimantas Kodzius, Sydney Brenner and Byrappa Venkatesh

Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR, Biopolis, Singapore

E-mail: mcbbv{at}imcb.a-star.edu.sg.

Accepted for publication November 23, 2008.

Stephen (2008) identified 13,736 ultraconserved elements (UCEs) in placental mammals and investigated their evolution in opossum, chicken, frog, and fugu. They found that there was a massive expansion of UCEs during tetrapod evolution and the substitution rate in UCEs showed a significant decline in tetrapods compared with fugu, suggesting they were exapted in tetrapods. They considered it unlikely that these elements are ancient but evolved at a higher rate in teleost fishes. In this study, we investigated the evolution of UCEs in a cartilaginous fish, the elephant shark and show that nearly half the UCEs were present in the jawed vertebrate ancestor. The substitution rate in UCEs is higher in fugu than in elephant shark, and approximately one-third of ancient UCEs have diverged beyond recognition in teleost fishes. These data indicate that UCEs have evolved at a higher rate in teleost fishes, which may have implications for their vast diversity and evolutionary success.

Key Words: ultraconserved elements • elephant shark • teleost fish

1 These authors contributed equally to this work.

Naruya Saitou, Associate Editor


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Genome ResHome page
A. L. Hufton, S. Mathia, H. Braun, U. Georgi, H. Lehrach, M. Vingron, A. J. Poustka, and G. Panopoulou
Deeply conserved chordate noncoding sequences preserve genome synteny but do not drive gene duplicate retention
Genome Res., November 1, 2009; 19(11): 2036 - 2051.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
V. Ravi, K. Lam, B.-H. Tay, A. Tay, S. Brenner, and B. Venkatesh
Elephant shark (Callorhinchus milii) provides insights into the evolution of Hox gene clusters in gnathostomes
PNAS, September 22, 2009; 106(38): 16327 - 16332.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.