| 研究実績の概要 |
The main aim of this year was to compare in vivo freshwater turtle pyrene metabolism with tortoise species. Our selection criteria was also different: in the former case we used distant families to get a general overview, in the later we concentrated on the closely related Testudo genus. Interestingly, we have found two distinct pattern by the analysis of the metabolites: pyrene-1-sulfate dominated all the freshwater turtle samples, while in land dwelling species pyrene-1-glucuronide was the main metabolite, with more variability. Since all the freshwater species were carnivores, while the tortoises strictly herbivorous, this suggests two possible explanation: A, the sulfate-dominance is due to feeding habits (we can see a similar pattern in the case of Carnivores, where functioning UGT1A isoform numbers are low), or, B, the difference is due to the habitat, i.e. the water environment with accessible sulfates is responsible for the metabolite distribution (this would explain why we can see a similar pattern of pyrene metabolism in amphibians).
Further understanding of the genetic background of this differences would be necessary, but my cloning experiments with Cytochrome P450 1A5 was not successful. (This is the reason we did not created a yeast model).
At the same time, the slowly increasing NGS data from reptiles created a new opportunity: while sequencing itself, due to the overall costs, was not feasible, methods to analyse the various reptile genomes and transcriptomes were under development, and will be finalized in this year.
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