Presentation
Preliminary survey of homeodomains in Lumbriculus variegatus
Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology
(2018)
Abstract
Several animal clades contain members capable of body part regeneration. In particular, many annelids have remarkable regenerative abilities. A recent review of annelid regeneration noted the utility of examining a wide variety of annelid species to help uncover conserved versus derived regenerative abilities (1). The annelid L. variegatus is a superb model organism for regeneration research (2), but is poorly characterized at the molecular level. Since Hox genes code for transcription factors that help establish positional identity during animal development and regeneration (3), we sought to study the expression of Hox genes during L. variegatus regeneration. As a first step we cloned Hox genes from L. variegatus. Genomic DNA was extracted from L. variegatus and conserved homeodomain regions were amplified via PCR with degenerate primers (4). PCR products of the expected size were inserted into the pGEM-T Easy vector and sequences from 18 plasmids were placed into six different groups based on sharing greater than 90% amino acid identity. A member of each group was compared to homeodomain sequences from other organisms and named Lva (L. variegatus) followed by the paralog group it is part of (if one could be ascertained). We identified Lva-Scr (95% a.a. identity to earthworm P. excavatus (Pex)-Scr), Lva-Lox2 (97% a.a. identity to Pex-Lox2), and Lva-Lox5 (95% a.a. identity to Pex-Lox5), all part of the central group Hox gene cluster, and an Xlox paralog (92% identity to Pex-Xlox), part of the ParaHox gene cluster. Two sequences do not show high similarity to any homeodomains (less than 84% a.a. identity to any Pex homeodomains screened). To our knowledge this is the first report of homeodomain sequences from the Lumbriculidae family of annelids. Our study may pave the way for analyzing Hox gene expression along the anterior-posterior axis of adult L. variegatus and during regeneration following amputation.
Disciplines
Publication Date
2018
Location
New Orleans
Comments
This poster was the culmination of an independent research project undertaken by students as part of the Introduction to Experimenatl Biology class (Biol 110) at Kenyon College. This research led to a poster presented at a national meeting (APS Intersociety Meeting, Comparative Physiology: Complexity & Integration, New Orleans 2018) and six sequence submissions to GenBank (accession numbers MH591119.1 through MH591124.1)
Citation Information
Gillen K., Fischer F., Valin L. Preliminary survey of homeodomains in Lumbriculus variegatus. The Physiologist Vol. 62 No.1, abstract # 28.43 (2019)