circular dna intermediate in the duplication of nile tilapia vasa genes环状dna复制的中间尼罗罗非鱼瓦萨号基因.pdfVIP

Circular DNA Intermediate in the Duplication of Nile Tilapia vasa Genes ¤ Koji Fujimura , Matthew A. Conte, Thomas D. Kocher* Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America Abstract vasa is a highly conserved RNA helicase involved in animal germ cell development. Among vertebrate species, it is typically present as a single copy per genome. Here we report the isolation and sequencing of BAC clones for Nile tilapia vasa genes. Contrary to a previous report that Nile tilapia have a single copy of the vasa gene, we find evidence for at least three vasa gene loci. The vasa gene locus was duplicated from the original site and integrated into two distant novel sites. For one of these insertions we find evidence that the duplication was mediated by a circular DNA intermediate. This mechanism of gene duplication may explain the origin of isolated gene duplicates during the evolution of fish genomes. These data provide a foundation for studying the role of multiple vasa genes in the development of tilapia gonads, and will contribute to investigations of the molecular mechanisms of sex determination and evolution in cichlid fishes. Citation: Fujimura K, Conte MA, Kocher TD (2011) Circular DNA Intermediate in the Duplication of Nile Tilapia vasa Genes. PLoS ONE 6(12): e29477. doi:10.1371/ journal.pone.0029477 Editor: Zhanjiang Liu, Auburn University, United States of America Received July 29, 2011; Accepted November 29, 2011; Published December 22, 2011 Copyright: 2011 Fujimura et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was supported by grant R01HD058635 from the Nat