The pufferfish Fugu rubripes has a genome approximately 7.5 times smaller than that of mammals but with a similar number of genes. Although conserved synteny has been demonstrated between pufferfish and mammals across some regions of the genome, there is some controversy as to what extent Fugu will be a useful model for the human genome, e.g., [Gilley, J., Armes, N. & Fried, M. (1997) Nature (L...

The stem cell leukemia (SCL) gene encodes a tissue-specific basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) protein with a pivotal role in hemopoiesis and vasculogenesis. Several enhancers have been identified within the murine SCL locus that direct reporter gene expression to subdomains of the normal SCL expression pattern, and long-range sequence comparisons of the human and murine SCL loci have identified add...

In this paper we report the cloning and characterization of the erythropoietin (Epo) gene from the pufferfish, Fugu rubripes. This is the first nonmammalian Epo gene to be cloned. The Fugu Epo comprises 5 exons and 4 introns similar to the human EPO, and encodes a 185-amino acid protein that is 32% to 34% identical to Epo from various mammals. The synteny of genes at the Epo locus is conserved ...

Zinc is a vital micronutrient to all organisms and a potential toxicant to aquatic animals. It is therefore of importance to understand the mechanism of zinc regulation. In the present study, we molecularly cloned and functionally characterized a zinc transporter of the SLC39A family [commonly referred to as the ZIP (Zrt- and Irt-related protein) family] from the gill of zebrafish (Danio rerio)...

The insulin-like growth factor (IGF) signaling pathway is a conserved pathway that regulates animal development, growth, metabolism, reproduction, and aging. The biological actions of IGFs are modulated by IGF-binding proteins (IGFBPs). Although the structure and function of fish IGFBP-1, -2, -3, and -5 have been elucidated, there is currently no report on the full-length structure of a fish IG...

We screened the genomic sequences of the teleost fish Fugu rubripes for genes that encode cytoplasmic intermediate filament (IF) proteins. Here, we compare the number of genes per subfamily (I to IV) as well as the gene mapping in the human and fish genomes. There are several unexpected differences. F. rubripes has a sizeable excess of keratin type I genes over keratin type II genes. Four of th...

In addition to protein coding sequence, the human genome contains a significant amount of regulatory DNA, the identification of which is proving somewhat recalcitrant to both in silico and functional methods. An approach that has been used with some success is comparative sequence analysis, whereby equivalent genomic regions from different organisms are compared in order to identify both simila...

Naturally occurring antisense transcription is associated with the regulation of gene expression through a variety of biological mechanisms. Several recent genome-wide studies reported the identification of potential antisense transcripts for thousands of mammalian genes, many of them resulting from alternatively polyadenylated transcripts or heterogeneous transcription start sites. However, it...

The usage of the name Rana ocellata Linnaeus, 1758, is plagued by misidentifications and misinterpretations. After an exhaustive bibliographic review, we conclude that the Linnaeus 1758 name refers to Osteopilus brunneus (Gosse, 1851) from Jamaica, while the taxon currently known as Leptodactylus ocellatus corresponds to Rana latrans Steffen, 1815. Herein, we designate and provide descriptions ...

A species complex hypothesis involving Astyanax fasciatus from southern Brazil was tested using 12S mtDNA sequences. Phylogenetic inferences were performed with maximum likelihood, maximum parsimony and Bayesian as phylogenetic methods and Hemigrammus bleheri as the outgroup. Besides 11 sequences from A. fasciatus, the data set was comprised of other partial 12S sequences including material fro...