Extensive lineage-specific gene duplication and evolution of the spiggin multi-gene family in stickleback

• Main Authors: Nishida Mutsumi, Kawahara Ryouka
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: BMC 2007-11-01
• Series: BMC Evolutionary Biology
• Online Access: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/7/209

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The threespine stickleback (<it>Gasterosteus aculeatus</it>) has a characteristic reproductive mode; mature males build nests using a secreted glue-like protein called spiggin. Although recent studies reported multiple occurrences of genes that encode this glue-like protein spiggin in threespine and ninespine sticklebacks, it is still unclear how many genes compose the spiggin multi-gene family.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Genome sequence analysis of threespine stickleback showed that there are at least five spiggin genes and two pseudogenes, whereas a single spiggin homolog occurs in the genomes of other fishes. Comparative genome sequence analysis demonstrated that Muc19, a single-copy mucous gene in human and mouse, is an ortholog of spiggin. Phylogenetic and molecular evolutionary analyses of these sequences suggested that an ancestral spiggin gene originated from a member of the mucin gene family as a single gene in the common ancestor of teleosts, and gene duplications of spiggin have occurred in the stickleback lineage. There was inter-population variation in the copy number of spiggin genes and positive selection on some codons, indicating that additional gene duplication/deletion events and adaptive evolution at some amino acid sites may have occurred in each stickleback population.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>A number of spiggin genes exist in the threespine stickleback genome. Our results provide insight into the origin and dynamic evolutionary process of the spiggin multi-gene family in the threespine stickleback lineage. The dramatic evolution of genes for mucous substrates may have contributed to the generation of distinct characteristics such as "bio-glue" in vertebrates.</p>