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Cichlid fishes are famous for large, diverse and replicated adaptive radiations in the Great Lakes of East Africa. To understand the molecular mechanisms underlying cichlid phenotypic diversity, we sequenced the genomes and transcriptomes of five lineages of African cichlids: the Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus), an ancestral lineage with low diversity; and four members of the East African lineage: Neolamprologus brichardi/pulcher (older radiation, Lake Tanganyika), Metriaclima zebra (recent radiation, Lake Malawi), Pundamilia nyererei (very recent radiation, Lake Victoria), and Astatotilapia burtoni (riverine species around Lake Tanganyika). We found an excess of gene duplications in the East African lineage compared to tilapia and other teleosts, an abundance of non-coding element divergence, accelerated coding sequence evolution, expression divergence associated with transposable element insertions, and regulation by novel microRNAs. In addition, we analysed sequence data from sixty individuals representing six closely related species from Lake Victoria, and show genome-wide diversifying selection on coding and regulatory variants, some of which were recruited from ancient polymorphisms. We conclude that a number of molecular mechanisms shaped East African cichlid genomes, and that amassing of standing variation during periods of relaxed purifying selection may have been important in facilitating subsequent evolutionary diversification.

The early development of teleost paired fins is strikingly similar to that of tetrapod limb buds and is controlled by similar mechanisms (1,2). One early morphological divergence between pectoral fins and limbs is in the fate of the apical ectodermal ridge (AER), the distal epidermis that rims the bud. Whereas the AER of tetrapods regresses after specification of the skeletal progenitors (3), the AER of teleost fishes forms a fold that elongates (4,5). Formation of the fin fold is accompanied by the synthesis of two rows of rigid, unmineralized fibrils called actinotrichia, which keep the fold straight (6,7) and guide the migration of mesenchymal cells within the fold (5,8). The actinotrichia are made of elastoidin, the components of which, apart from collagen, are unknown. Here we show that two zebrafish proteins, which we name actinodin 1 and 2 (And1 and And2), are essential structural components of elastoidin. The presence of actinodin sequences in several teleost fishes and in the elephant shark (Callorhinchus milii, which occupies a basal phylogenetic position), but not in tetrapods, suggests that these genes have been lost during tetrapod species evolution. Double gene knockdown of and1 and and2 in zebrafish embryos results in the absence of actinotrichia and impaired fin folds. Gene expression profiles in embryos lacking and1 and and2 function are consistent with pectoral fin truncation and may offer a potential explanation for the polydactyly observed in early tetrapod fossils. We propose that the loss of both actinodins and actinotrichia during evolution may have led to the loss of lepidotrichia and may have contributed to the fin-to-limb transition., The structure and composition of the actinotrichia have intrigued scientists since the end of the nineteenth century because of the properties of the component elastoidin (9,10), a term coined to [...]

Promyelocytic leukaemia protein nuclear bodies (PML-NBs) are nuclear structures whose function is still poorly understood. They are implicated in various biological functions, such as viral infection, cellular transformation, innate immunity and growth control, and they might be dynamic hubs sensing stress and DNA damage. Data from [PML.sup.-/-] mice suggest that PML-NBs are involved in apoptosis via caspase-independent mechanisms, probably involving p53-dependent and independent pathways. However, the recently demonstrated co-localization of caspase-2 within the PML-NB nuclear structures presents a new paradigm for nuclear cell death. Here, we show that these nuclear structures have a protein known as SP100 that could contain a caspase recruitment domain (CARD). If verified experimentally, this discovery will suggest a mechanism by which caspase-2 could be recruited into the complex and ultimately lead to apoptosis.

POTRA (for polypeptide-transport-associated domain) is a novel domain identified in proteins of the ShlB, Toc75, D15 and FtsQ/DivlB families. In most cases, the POTRA domain is associated with a [beta]-barrel outer membrane domain and its function has been experimentally related to polypeptide transport in Toc75 (Tic-Toc protein import system in chloroplast) and ShlB families. In addition to potential key roles in protein transport across the outer membrane and in bacterial septation, the POTRA domain has attractive features for vaccine development in diseases such as cholera, meningitis, gonorrhoea and syphilis.

A novel domain (the BRICHOS domain) of ~100 amino acids has been identified in several previously unrelated proteins that are linked to major diseases. These include BR[I.sub.2], which is related to familial British and Danish dementia (FBD and FDD); Chondromodulin-I (ChM-I), related to chondrosarcoma; CA11, related to stomach cancer; and surfactant protein C (SP-C), related to respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). In several of these, the conserved BRICHOS domain is located in the propeptide region that is removed after proteolytic processing. Experimental data suggest that the role of this domain could be related to the complex post-translational processing of these proteins.

Protein posttranslational modifications add great sophistication to biological systems. Citrullination, a key regulatory mechanism in human physiology and pathophysiology, is enigmatic from an evolutionary perspective. Although the citrullinating enzymes peptidylarginine deiminases (PADIs) are ubiquitous across vertebrates, they are absent from yeast, worms, and flies. Based on this distribution PADIs were proposed to have been horizontally transferred, but this has been contested. Here, we map the evolutionary trajectory of PADIs into the animal lineage. We present strong phylogenetic support for a clade encompassing animal and cyanobacterial PADIs that excludes fungal and other bacterial homologs. The animal and cyanobacterial PADI proteins share functionally relevant primary and tertiary synapomorphic sequences that are distinct from a second PADI type present in fungi and actinobacteria. Molecular clock calculations and sequence divergence analyses using the fossil record estimate the last common ancestor of the cyanobacterial and animal PADIs to be less than 1 billion years old. Additionally, under an assumption of vertical descent, PADI sequence change during this evolutionary time frame is anachronistically low, even when compared with products of likely endosymbiont gene transfer, mitochondrial proteins, and some of the most highly conserved sequences in life. The consilience of evidence indicates that PADIs were introduced from cyanobacteria into animals by horizontal gene transfer (HGT). The ancestral cyanobacterial PADI is enzymatically active and can citrullinate eukaryotic proteins, suggesting that the PADI HGT event introduced a new catalytic capability into the regulatory repertoire of animals. This study reveals the unusual evolution of a pleiotropic protein modification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Background Polycomb group (PcG) proteins are a set of chromatin-modifying proteins that play a key role in epigenetic gene regulation. The PcG proteins form large multiprotein complexes with different activities. The two best-characterized PcG complexes are the PcG repressive complex 1 (PRC1) and 2 (PRC2) that respectively possess histone 2A lysine 119 E3 ubiquitin ligase and histone 3 lysine 27 methyltransferase activities. While PRC2-like complexes are conserved throughout the eukaryotic kingdoms, PRC1-like complexes have only been described in Drosophila and vertebrates. Since both complexes are required for the gene silencing mechanism in Drosophila and vertebrates, how PRC1 function is realized in organisms that apparently lack PRC1 such as plants, is so far unknown. In vertebrates, PRC1 includes three proteins, Ring1B, Ring1A, and Bmi-1 that form an E3 ubiquitin ligase complex. These PRC1 proteins have an N-terminally located Ring finger domain associated to a poorly characterized conserved C-terminal region. Results We obtained statistically significant evidences of sequence similarity between the C-terminal region of the PRC1 Ring finger proteins and the ubiquitin (Ubq)-like family proteins, thus defining a new Ubq-like domain, the RAWUL domain. In addition, our analysis revealed the existence of plant and worm proteins that display the conserved combination of a Ring finger domain at the N-terminus and a RAWUL domain at the C-terminus. Conclusion Analysis of the conserved domain architecture among PRC1 Ring finger proteins revealed the existence of long sought PRC1 protein orthologs in these organisms, suggesting the functional conservation of PRC1 throughout higher eukaryotes.