Abstract

Doc number: 271

Abstract

Background: Fatty acids, a considerable fraction of lipid molecules, participate in fundamental physiological processes. They undergo activation into their corresponding CoA esters for oxidation or esterification into complex lipids (e.g. triglycerides, phospholipids and cholesterol esters), a process that is carried out by acyl-CoA synthases (ACS). Here we analyze the evolution of the gene family encoding for the long-chain acyl-CoA synthetases (Acsl ) in vertebrates.

Results: By means of phylogenetics and comparative genomics we show that genome duplications (2R) generated the diversity of Acsl genes in extant vertebrate lineages. In the vertebrate ancestor two separate genes originated the current Acsl 1/5/6 and the Acsl 3/4 gene families, and the extra gene duplicates in teleosts are a consequence of the teleost specific third round of genome duplication (3R). Moreover, the diversity of Acsl family members is broader than anticipated. Our strategy uncovered a novel uncharacterized Acsl- like gene found in teleosts, spotted gar, coelacanth and possibly lamprey, which we designate Acsl2 . The detailed analysis of the Acsl2 teleost gene locus strongly supports the conclusion that it corresponds to a retained 2R paralogue, lost in tetrapods.

Conclusions: We provide here the first evolutionary analysis of the Acsl gene family in vertebrates, showing the specific contribution of 2R/3R to the diversity of this gene family. We find also that the division of ACSL enzymes into two groups predates at least the emergence of deuterostomes. Our study indicates that genome duplications significantly contributed to the elaboration of fatty acid activation metabolism in vertebrates.

Details

Title
Diversity and history of the long-chain acyl-CoA synthetase (Acsl ) gene family in vertebrates
Author
Lopes-Marques, Mónica; Cunha, Isabel; Reis-Henriques, Maria Armanda; Santos, Miguel M; Castro, L Filipe C
Pages
271
Publication year
2013
Publication date
2013
Publisher
BioMed Central
e-ISSN
14712148
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
1476438077
Copyright
© 2013 Lopes-Marques et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.