uncx L and uncx S homologous genes participate in vertebral column formation in Xenopus laevis

SANCHEZ, ROMEL SEBASTIÁN; LAZARTE MARÍA DE LOS ÁNGELES; SÁNCHEZ SARA SERAFINA

Buenos Aires

Congreso; Latin American Society for Developmental Biology Meeting 2019; 2019

Latin American Society for Developmental Biology (LASDB)

Throughout evolution, the polyploidization events have shaped diverse eukaryotic genomes. However, the component subgenomes of a polyploid must cooperate to mediate potential incompatibilities of gene dose, regulatory controls and protein-protein interactions. Redundant functional elements in a polyploid are expected to rapidly revert to single copies through the fixation of disabling mutations and/or loss unless prevented by neofunctionalization, subfunctionalization, or selection for gene dose.Recent studies have demonstrated that X. laevis is an allotetraploid organism whose genome its partitioning two distinct homoeologous subgenomes (L and S); which do not recombine with each other and have evolved asymmetrically.In this work, we cloned and characterization the uncx.S and uncx.L transcription factors of Xenopus. The comparative analysis of the protein sequences showed that uncx.L gene its truncated, lacking the C-terminal domain (similar to dominant-negative). Through the in situ hybridization technique, we found that these homologous pairs are expressed in the sclerotome and in the pharyngeal pouches; and additionally, uncx.S it is also expressed in the pronephros.On the other hand, we conducted experiments of gain and loss of function of uncx homologs. With these assay, we showed that both uncx genes play an important role in the sclerotome development and found evidenced a novel mechanism of regulation of gene dose in which uncx.L antagonize witch uncx.S function