Summary
The Bombyx fibroin gene has a discrete mosaic structure of various repetitive sequences, which may have evolved through various repeating arrangements. Detailed sequence analysis of the fibroin gene containing coding and noncoding regions revealed that the whole sequence could be arranged as an array of short repetitive sequences. A portion of the intron of the fibroin gene is one of interspersed repetitive elements. We cloned a 1.5-kb DNA fragment of the Bombyx genome that contains interspersed elements homologous to the intron sequence. Sequence comparison between the intron and the 1.5-kb fragment shows that partial duplication has frequently occurred in evolutionary progress, and the resultant repetitive blocks of short motif sequences are abundant in the genome. These facts suggest that tandem duplication of the short motif sequence is an important rearrangement in genomic evolution of the fibroin gene.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Adams DS, Herrera RJ, Luhrmann R, Lizardi PM (1985) Isolation and partial characterization of U1-U6 small RNAs from Bombyx mori. Biochemistry 24:117–125
Adams DS, Eickbush TH, Herrera RJ, Lizardi PM (1986) A highly reiterated family of transcribed oligo(A)-terminated interspersed DNA elements in the genome of Bombyx mori. J Mol Biol 187:465–478
Branlant C, Krol A, Lazar E, Haendler B, Jacob M, Galego-Dias L, Pousada C (1983) High evolutionary conservation of the secondary structure and of certain nucleotide sequences of U5 RNA. Nucleic Acids Res 11:8359–8367
Dixon LK, Bristow C, Wilkinson PJ, Sumption KJ (1990) Identification of a variable region of the African swine fever virus genome that has undergone separate DNA rearrangements leading to expansion of minisatellite-like sequences. J Mol Biol 216:677–688
Dworkin-Rastl E, Shrutkowski A, Dworkin MB (1984) Multiple ubiquitin mRNAs during Xenopus laevis development contain tandem repeats of the 76 amino acid coding sequence. Cell 39:321–325
Fujita T, Shibuya H, Hotta H, Yamanishi K, Taniguchi T (1987) Interferon gene regulation: tandemly repeated sequences of a synthetic 6 by oligomer function as a virus-inducible enhancer. Cell 49:357–367
Gage LP (1974) The Bombyx mori genome: analysis by DNA reassociation kinetics. Chromosoma (Berl) 45:27–42
Gage LP, Manning RF (1980) Internal structure of the silk fibroin gene of Bombyx mori. J Biol Chem 255:9444–9450
Galli J, Lendahl U, Paulsson G, Ericsson C, Bergman T, Carlquist M, Wieslander L (1990) A new member of a secretory protein gene family in the dipteran Chironomus tentans has a variant repeat structure. J Mol Evol 31:40–50
Henikoff S (1984) Unidirectional digestion with exonuclease III creates targeted breakpoints for DNA sequencing. Gene 28:351–359
Hoog C, Daneholt B, Wieslander L (1988) Terminal repeats in long repeat arrays are likely to reflect the early evolution of Balbiani ring genes. J Mol Biol 200:655–664
Jeffreys AJ, Wilson V, Thein SL (1985a) Hypervariable ‘mini-satellite’ region in human DNA. Nature 314:67–73
Jeffreys AJ, Wilson V, Thein SL (1985b) Individual-specific ‘fingerprints’ of human DNA. Nature 316:76–79
Kemp DJ, Coppel RL, Anders RF (1987) Repetitive proteins and genes of malaria. Annu Rev Microbiol 41:181–208
Kominami R, Mitani K, Muramatsu M (1988) Nucleotide sequence of a mouse minisatellite DNA. Nucleic Acids Res 16: 1197
Krowczynska AM, Rudders RA, Krontiris TG (1990) The human minisatellite consensus at breakpoints of oncogene translocations. Nucleic Acids Res 18:1121–1127
Kudo S, Fukuda M (1989) Structural organization of glycophorin A and B genes: glycoprotein B gene evolved by homologous recombination at Alu repeat sequences. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 86:4619–4623
Kusuda J, Tajima Y, Onimaru K, Ninaki O, Suzuki Y (1986) The sequence around the 5′ end of the fibroin gene from the wild silkworm, Bombyx mandarina, and comparison with that of the domesticated species, B. mori. Mol Gen Genet 203:359–364
Lehrman MA, Russell DW, Goldstein JL, Brown MS (1986) Exon-Alu recombination deletes 5 kilobases from the low density lipoprotein receptor gene, producing a null phenotype in familial hypercholesterolemia. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 83:3679–3683
Matera AG, Hellmann U, Schmid CW (1990) A transpositionally and transcriptionally competent Alu subfamily. Mol Cell Biol 10:5424–5432
Meyne J, Ratliff RL, Moyzis RK (1989) Conservation of the human telomere sequence (TTAGGG) n among vertebrates. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 86:7049–7053
Mita K, Ichimura S, Zama M, James TC (1988) Specific codon usage pattern and its implications on the secondary structure of silk fibroin mRNA. J Mol Biol 203:917–925
Ohno S (1987) Evolution from primordial oligomeric repeats to modern coding sequences. J Mol Evol 25:325–329
Ohshima Y, Okada N, Tani T, Itoh Y, Itoh M (1981) Nucleotide sequences of mouse genomic loci including a gene or pseudogene for U6 (4.8S) nuclear RNA. Nucleic Acids Res 9:5145–5158
Pearson WR, Mukai T, Morrow JF (1981) Repeated DNA sequences near the 5′-end of the silk fibroin gene. J Biol Chem 256:4033–4041
Stuve LL, Meyers RM (1990) A directly repeated sequence in the β-globin promoter regulates transcription in murine erythroleukemia cells. Mol Cell Biol 10:972–981
Takeishi K, Gotoh O (1982) Computer analysis of the sequence relationships among 4.5S RNA molecular species from various sources. J Biochem 92:1173–1177
Tautz D, Renz M (1984) Simple sequences are ubiquitous repetitive components of eukaryotic genomes. Nucleic Acids Res 12:4127–4138
Tsujimoto Y, Suzuki Y (1979a) Structural analysis of the fibroin gene at the 5′ end and its surrounding regions. Cell 16:425–436
Tsujimoto Y, Suzuki Y (1979b) The DNA sequence of Bombyx mori fibroin gene including the 5′ flanking, mRNA coding, entire intervening and fibroin protein coding regions. Cell 18: 591–600
Ullu E, Tschudi C (1984) Alu sequences are processed 7SL RNA genes. Nature 312:171–172
Yanisch-Perron C, Vieira J, Messing J (1985) Improved M13 phage cloning vectors and host strains: nucleotide sequences of the M13 mp18 and pUC19 vectors. Gene 33:103–119
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
Offprint requests to: S. Ichimura
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ichimura, S., Mita, K. Essential role of duplications of short motif sequences in the genomic evolution of Bombyx mori . J Mol Evol 35, 123–130 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00183223
Received:
Revised:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00183223