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MBE Advance Access published online on October 25, 2006
Molecular Biology and Evolution, 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
Accepted October 13, 2006

Research Article

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

Keiiti Anan 1, Nobuaki Yoshida 2, Yuki Kataoka 2, Mitsuharu Sato 2, Hirotake Ichise 2, Makoto Nasu 1, and Shintaroh Ueda 1 *

1 Department of Biological Sciences, Gradate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
2 Laboratory of Gene Expression and Regulation, Institute of Medical Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Shintaroh Ueda, E-mail: sueda{at}biol.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp


  Abstract

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 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.

Keywords: homopolymeric amino acid repeats; polyalanine tract; Hoxd-13; mouse model.
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