MBE Advance Access published online on April 27, 2005
Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msi159
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1 Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259-B21, Nagatsuta-cho, Midori-ku, Yokohama, 226-8501, Japan
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Lake Victoria cichlid fishes are excellent examples of explosive adaptive radiation. Although Lake Victoria cichlids are believed to have arisen during a short period (
Accepted April 4, 2005
Research Article
cimp1, a novel astacin family metalloproteinase gene from East African cichlids, is differentially expressed between species during growth
2 Laboratory for Evolutionary Morphology, Center for Developmental Biology, RIKEN Kobe, 2-2-3 Minatojima-minami, Kobe 650-0047, Japan
3 National Institute of Genetics, Yata, 1111, Mishima, Shizuoka 411-8540, Japan
4 Graduate School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259-B21, Nagatsuta-cho, Midori-ku, Yokohama, 226-8501, Japan; National Institute for Basic Biology, Okazaki, 444-8585, Japan
Norihiro Okada, E-mail: nokada{at}bio.titech.ac.jp
Abstract 
14,000 years), they have various species-specific phenotypes. One important phenotype that distinguishes each species is the shape of the jaw, which has diverged to adapt to the wide variety of trophic habitats present in the lake. Here we demonstrate a new approach to investigate the diversification of cichlid jaw morphology at the genetic level by examining differentially expressed genes. We used a DNA chip to compare gene expression levels between closely related cichlid fishes. This analysis indicated that the expression of some genes differed in the larvae of two cichlid species. One such clone encodes a new astacin family metalloproteinase. The expression level of the isolated gene, named cimp1, was analyzed in more detail by real-time quantitative RTPCR. A significant difference in cimp1 expression was observed between two Haplochromis cichlid species during development. Using in situ hybridization, we found that this gene is expressed only in head and gill epithelia. Biochemical analysis showed that CiMP1 has proteolytic activity, a common attribute of all astacin family proteins. Because some astacin family proteins contribute to morphogenesis in animals, CiMP1 is expected to participate in species-specific head morphogenesis in cichlids. This is the first demonstration that differentially expressed genes among cichlids can be identified using a DNA chip.
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