a genome-wide survey on basic helix-loop-helix transcription factors in giant panda全基因组调查基本helix-loop-helix转录因子在大熊猫.pdfVIP

A Genome-Wide Survey on Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Transcription Factors in Giant Panda 1 2 1 1 1 Chunwang Dang , Yong Wang *, Debao Zhang , Qin Yao , Keping Chen 1 Institute of Life Sciences, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China, 2 School of Food and Biological Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, People’s Republic of China Abstract The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is a critically endangered mammalian species. Studies on functions of regulatory proteins involved in developmental processes would facilitate understanding of specific behavior in giant panda. The basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) proteins play essential roles in a wide range of developmental processes in higher organisms. bHLH family members have been identified in over 20 organisms, including fruit fly, zebrafish, mouse and human. Our present study identified 107 bHLH family members being encoded in giant panda genome. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that they belong to 44 bHLH families with 46, 25, 15, 4, 11 and 3 members in group A, B, C, D, E and F, respectively, while the remaining 3 members were assigned into ‘‘orphan’’. Compared to mouse, the giant panda does not encode seven bHLH proteins namely Beta3a, Mesp2, Sclerax, S-Myc, Hes5 (or Hes6), EBF4 and Orphan 1. These results provide useful background information for future studies on structure and function of bHLH proteins in the regulation of giant panda development. Citation: Dang C, Wang Y, Zhang D, Yao Q, Chen K (2011) A Genome-Wide Survey on Basic Helix-Loop-Helix Transcription Factors in Giant Panda. PLoS ONE 6(11): e26878. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0026878 Editor: Vladimir N. Uversky, University of South Florida College of Medicine, United States of America Received July 25, 2011; Accepte