Phylogenetic development of a regulatory gene for the core 2 GlcNAc transferase in Mus musculus.

Michiko Sekine, Yoshiaki Kikkawa, Sumiyo Takahama, Kaoru Tsuda, Hiromichi Yonekawa, Akemi Suzuki

Department of Laboratory Animal Science, The Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Medical Science, Honkomagome, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8613, Japan.

Journal of biochemistry 2002 Sep

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In our previous study, we identified a mouse gene, Gsl5, that controls the expression of a glycolipid, GL-Y [Galbeta1-4(Fucalpha1-3)GlcNAcbeta1-6(Galbeta1-3)GalNAcbeta1-3Galalpha1-4Galbeta1-4Glcbeta1-Cer], and the core 2 structure of O-linked glycans of glycoproteins, GlcNAcbeta1-6(Galbeta1-3)GalNAcalpha-Ser/Thr, in a kidney tubular cell-specific manner through the regulation of UDP-GlcNAc beta-1,6-GlcNAc transferase (GNT). Regulation by the Gsl5 gene occurs at the level of GNT mRNA and the recessive allele of Gsl5 is rare and carried by DBA/2 and its related strains. Here, we report a sequence comparison of the 5' flanking region of the GNT gene among 5 laboratory strains and 10 wild-derived strains, demonstrating that the DBA/2 allele sequence is similar to the sequence carried by Asian Mus m. musculus and differs substantially from the East European M. m. musculus. These results suggest that the DBA/2 allele of Gsl5 was introduced into laboratory mouse strains by Asian wild-derived mice. Phylogenetic comparison of the 5' flanking region sequences between the recessive and dominant Gsl5 alleles indicates that mutations to create a functional Gsl5 gene occurred approximately one million years ago during the subspeciation of M. musculus, and provides a case for studies on the creation of functional genes involved in tissue-specific transcriptional regulation.

Citation

Michiko Sekine, Yoshiaki Kikkawa, Sumiyo Takahama, Kaoru Tsuda, Hiromichi Yonekawa, Akemi Suzuki. Phylogenetic development of a regulatory gene for the core 2 GlcNAc transferase in Mus musculus. Journal of biochemistry. 2002 Sep;132(3):387-93