Fish express mammalian-type (M-type) TLRs consisting of leucine-rich repeats (LRRs) and Toll-IL-1R (TIR) homology domain for immunity, whereas invertebrates in deuterostomes appear to have no orthologs of M-type TLRs. Lampetra japonica (lamprey) belongs to the lowest class of vertebrates with little information about its TLRs. We have identified two cDNA sequences of putative TLRs in the lampre...

BACKGROUND Knowledge about Alburnoides remains lacking relative to many other species, resulting in a lack of a systematic position and taxonomic diagnosis. Basic biological information for Alburnoides has been constructed, and it is necessary to understand further and obtain more information about this species. Its phylogenetic relationships are still debated and no molecular data have been us...

The extant jawless vertebrates, represented by lampreys and hagfish, are the oldest group of vertebrates and provide an interesting genomic evolutionary pivot point between invertebrates and jawed vertebrates. Through genome analysis of one of these jawless vertebrates, the Japanese lamprey (Lethenteron japonicum), we identified all three members of the important p53 transcription factor family...

Among the transcription factor gene families, Pax genes play important and unique roles in morphological patterning of animal body plans. Of these, Group I Pax genes (Pax1 and Pax9) are expressed in the endodermal pharyngeal pouches in many groups of deuterostomes, and vertebrates seem to have acquired more extensive expression domains in embryos. To understand the evolution of Pax1/Pax9-relate...

This study investigated cellular and synaptic mechanisms of cholinergic neuromodulation in the in vitro lamprey spinal cord. Most spinal neurons tested responded to local application of acetylcholine (ACh) with depolarization and decreased input resistance. The depolarization persisted in the presence of either tetrodotoxin or muscarinic antagonist scopolamine and was abolished with nicotinic a...

Evolution in development can be viewed as a sequence of changes in gene regulation. To investigate the cross-species compatibility of 5’ upstream regulatory regions, we introduced exogenous gene constructs derived from a gnathostome genome into fertilized eggs of the Japanese lamprey, Lampetra japonica, a sister group of the gnathostomes. Eggs were injected with gene constructs in which a seque...

The acquisition of a hypothalamic-pituitary axis was a seminal event in vertebrate evolution leading to the neuroendocrine control of many complex functions including growth, reproduction, osmoregulation, stress and metabolism. Lampreys as basal vertebrates are the earliest evolved vertebrates for which there are demonstrated functional roles for two gonadotropin-releasing hormones (GnRHs) that...

In higher vertebrates, in response to stress, the hypothalamus produces corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), which stimulates cells in the anterior pituitary to produce adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH), which in turn stimulates production of either cortisol (F) or corticosterone (B) by the adrenal tissues. In lampreys, however, neither of these steroids is present. Instead, it has been prop...