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Evidence for a transposition event in a second NITR gene cluster in zebrafish

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Abstract

Novel immune-type receptors (NITRs) are immunoglobulin-variable (V) domain-containing cell surface proteins that possess characteristic activating/inhibitory signaling motifs and are expressed in hematopoietic cells. NITRs are encoded by multigene families and have been identified in bony fish species. A single gene cluster, which encodes 36 NITRs that can be classified into 12 families, has been mapped to zebrafish chromosome 7. We report herein the presence of a second NITR gene cluster on zebrafish chromosome 14, which is comprised of three genes (nitr13, nitr14a, and nitr14b) representing two additional NITR gene families. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that the V domains encoded by the nitr13 and nitr14 genes are more similar to each other than any other zebrafish NITR suggesting that these genes arose from a tandem gene duplication event. Similar analyses comparing zebrafish Nitr13 and Nitr14 to NITRs from other fish species indicate that the nitr13 and nitr14 genes are phylogenetically related to the catfish IpNITR13 and IpNITR15 genes. Sequence features of the chromosomal region encoding nitr13 suggest that this gene arose via retrotransposition.

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Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to Charles Lee for generously providing the reagents, resources, and advice for FISH analyses. Sequence data from this article have been deposited with GenBank under accession numbers EU170263 (nitr13), EU170264 (nitr14a-short isoform), and EU170265 (nitr14a-long isoform). Grants from NSF (MCB-0505585 to JAY), NIH (R01 AI057559 to GWL), and the All Children’s Hospital Foundation (to GWL) supported this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Molecular Biomedical Sciences and Center for Comparative Medicine and Translational Research, College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University, 4700 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, NC, 27606, USA

    Jeffrey A. Yoder

  2. Department of Pediatrics, University of South Florida College of Medicine, 830 First Street South, St. Petersburg, FL, 33701, USA

    John P. Cannon, Ronda T. Litman & Gary W. Litman

  3. Immunology Program, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, 12902 Magnolia Avenue, Tampa, FL, 33612, USA

    John P. Cannon & Gary W. Litman

  4. Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 221 Longwood Avenue, Boston, MA, 02115, USA

    Carly Murphy

  5. School of Health Sciences, Purdue University, 550 Stadium Mall Drive, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, USA

    Jennifer L. Freeman

  6. Department of Molecular Genetics, All Children’s Hospital, 801 Sixth Street South, St. Petersburg, FL, 33701, USA

    Gary W. Litman

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  1. Jeffrey A. Yoder
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  2. John P. Cannon
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  3. Ronda T. Litman
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  4. Carly Murphy
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  5. Jennifer L. Freeman
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  6. Gary W. Litman
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Correspondence to Jeffrey A. Yoder.

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Yoder, J.A., Cannon, J.P., Litman, R.T. et al. Evidence for a transposition event in a second NITR gene cluster in zebrafish. Immunogenetics 60, 257–265 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-008-0285-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00251-008-0285-3

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