Morphological change caused by loss of the taxon-specific polyalanine tract in Hoxd-13 |
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Authors: | Anan Keiiti Yoshida Nobuaki Kataoka Yuki Sato Mitsuharu Ichise Hirotake Nasu Makoto Ueda Shintaroh |
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Institution: | Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. |
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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 the 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. |
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Keywords: | homopolymeric amino acid repeats polyalanine tract Hoxd-13 mouse model |
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