酪氨酸酶(tyr)是一種75kD含銅酶,，來(lái)源于胚胎神經(jīng)峭細(xì)胞，是黑素代謝和兒茶酚胺的關(guān)鍵酶，廣泛存在于動(dòng)物,、植物及真菌。
黑色素是一種生物色素,，是酪胺酸經(jīng)過(guò)一連串化學(xué)反應(yīng)所形成,，動(dòng)物、植物與原生生物都有這種色素,。黑色素通常是以聚合的方式存在,。
近日，來(lái)自意大利的研究人員對(duì)后生動(dòng)物的酪氨酸酶家族開(kāi)展了一項(xiàng)深入的進(jìn)化方面的分析,?；诨蚪M測(cè)序，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)在所研究的生物中酪氨酸酶表現(xiàn)出差異性特征,。有趣的是,，在幾乎所有被分析的類群，這些酪氨酸酶有著各自獨(dú)立的進(jìn)化方向,。
酪氨酸酶相關(guān)蛋白(tyrp)來(lái)自于絡(luò)氨酸酶,，但是在其催化結(jié)構(gòu)域卻有著截然不同的殘基。研究人員詳細(xì)研究了玻璃海鞘的絡(luò)氨酸酶及酪氨酸酶相關(guān)蛋白,。而且,，他們還確認(rèn)了色素細(xì)胞系中與絡(luò)氨酸酶表達(dá)有關(guān)的調(diào)節(jié)序列,。
該研究增進(jìn)了對(duì)酪氨酸酶基因家族的認(rèn)識(shí)，有利于深入研究與色素細(xì)胞進(jìn)化及發(fā)展有關(guān)的遺傳元件,。相關(guān)論文發(fā)表在4月20日的PLoS ONE,。（生物谷Deepblue編譯）
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0035731
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New Insights into the Evolution of Metazoan Tyrosinase Gene Family
Rosaria Esposito, Salvatore D'Aniello, Paola Squarzoni, Maria Rosa Pezzotti, Filomena Ristoratore, Antonietta Spagnuolo.
Tyrosinases, widely distributed among animals, plants and fungi, are involved in the biosynthesis of melanin, a pigment that has been exploited, in the course of evolution, to serve different functions.We conducted a deep evolutionary analysis of tyrosinase family amongst metazoa, thanks to the availability of new sequenced genomes, assessing that tyrosinases (tyr) represent a distinctive feature of all the organisms included in our study and, interestingly, they show an independent expansion in most of the analyzed phyla. Tyrosinase-related proteins (tyrp), which derive from tyr but show distinct key residues in the catalytic domain, constitute an invention of chordate lineage.In addition we here reported a detailed study of the expression territories of the ascidian Ciona intestinalis tyr and tyrps. Furthermore, we put efforts in the identification of the regulatory sequences responsible for their expression in pigment cell lineage.Collectively, the results reported here enlarge our knowledge about the tyrosinase gene family as valuable resource for understanding the genetic components involved in pigment cells evolution and development.
