Processed gene P117 in Primates

1999 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

• Project/Area Number: 09839039
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: 自然史科学
• Research Institution: Nagoya Bunri College
• Principal Investigator: TAKENAKA Akiko Nagoya Bunri College, Food and Nutrition, Professor, 食物栄養学科, 教授 (50236486)
• Project Period (FY): 1997 – 1999
• Keywords: Retroposon / Primate / Processed gene / P117

Research Abstract

P117processed gene was found in the α-globin intergenic region in primates. 1) I determined the nucleotide sequences of founder P117 gene in the long-tailed macaques and in humans. It included 3 introns. The 52th Met in humans was substituted for Val in the long-tailed macaques. The number of nonsynonymous change (kィイD2AィエD2) of the processed gene in the macaques for the human founder gene was same as that of the original P117 gene in the long-tailed macaques for the human founder gene. This result shows that the insertion period of the processed gene was not far from now. 2) I made an antibody for the peptide in the P117 protein speculated from the nucleotide sequence. From the 25th to 39th amino acid were selected, because the amino acid sequences of this region were the same between in the long-tailed macaques and humans and many hydrophilic amino acids were included. Previous data indicated that the mRNA of the P117 was transcribed in the kidney, liver, brain and lung, and strong e xpression was observed in the kidney. So I tried to immunological chemical survey to the COS-1 cells which was derived from the kidney in the African green monkey. FITC fluolecence was observed clearly near the nucleus. 3) The nucleotide sequences of the processed genes in the primates were determined. I speculated that the hominoid does not have P117 processed sequence in their genom, because we could not get the PCR products from humans, chimpanzee, gorilla, orang-utan and gibbons. We could get strong bands, however, from the four specieses of the new world monkeys, ie, a tuffed captin, a long-haired spider monkey, a black-handed spider monkey, cotton topped tamarin. Their complete nucleotide sequences were determined. Synonymous and non-synonymous substitution rate between each other were calculated. The processed sequences in the new world monkeys had 12 bp gap, 1bp gap and the substitution to the teminal codon. The insertion period was speculated near the diversion time of the new world monkeys from the old world monkeys. However we need the nucleotide sequences of the founder gene from the new world monkeys.