Evolutionary conservation of cell migration genes: from nematode neurons to vertebrate neural crest
Abstract
Because migratory cells in all animals share common properties, we hypothesized that genetic networks involved in cell migration may be conserved between nematodes and vertebrates. To explore this, we performed comparative genomic analysis to identify vertebrate orthologs of genes required for hermaphrodite-specific neuron (HSN) migration in Caenoryhabditis elegans, and then examined their expression and function in the vertebrate neural crest. The results demonstrate high conservation of regulatory components involved in long-range migrations across diverse species. Although the neural crest is a vertebrate innovation, the results suggest that its migratory properties evolved by utilizing programs already present in the common vertebrate–invertebrate ancestor.
Additional Information
© 2007 by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. The Authors acknowledge that six months after the full-issue publication date, the Article will be distributed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC License (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Received November 7, 2006; revised version accepted January 9, 2007. We thank Samuel Ki for technical assistance and colleagues in the M.B.-F. laboratory for technical advice and discussion. We especially thank Drs. Titus Brown, Scott Fraser, Mihoko Kato, Daniel Meulemans, Ellen Rothenberg, Tatjana Sauka-Spengler, Erich Schwarz, and J.K. Sky Yu for helpful discussions on the manuscript, and Drs. Dominique Alfandari, Tamara Allison, Rik Derynck, Todd Evans, Cees Oudejans, and Richard Harland for sharing the constructs. This work was supported by NIH grants NS36585 and NS051051 (to M.B.-F.); by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, of which P.W.S. is an Investigator; and by NHGRI Genome Scholar Development and Faculty Transition Award (K22) (to B.J.H.).Attached Files
Published - 391.full.pdf
Supplemental Material - KeeSuppMat.doc
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC1804327
- Eprint ID
- 64115
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20160201-085752814
- NS36585
- NIH
- NS051051
- NIH
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI)
- National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI)
- K22
- Faculty Transition Award
- Created
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2016-02-03Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field