酪氨酸酶(tyr)是一種75kD含銅酶，來源于胚胎神經(jīng)峭細胞,，是黑素代謝和兒茶酚胺的關鍵酶,，廣泛存在于動物、植物及真菌,。
黑色素是一種生物色素,，是酪胺酸經(jīng)過一連串化學反應所形成，動物,、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,，來自意大利的研究人員對后生動物的酪氨酸酶家族開展了一項深入的進化方面的分析,。基于基因組測序,，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立的進化方向,。
酪氨酸酶相關蛋白(tyrp)來自于絡氨酸酶，但是在其催化結構域卻有著截然不同的殘基,。研究人員詳細研究了玻璃海鞘的絡氨酸酶及酪氨酸酶相關蛋白,。而且，他們還確認了色素細胞系中與絡氨酸酶表達有關的調節(jié)序列,。
該研究增進了對酪氨酸酶基因家族的認識,，有利于深入研究與色素細胞進化及發(fā)展有關的遺傳元件。相關論文發(fā)表在4月20日的PLoS ONE,。（生物谷Deepblue編譯）
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0035731
PMC:
PMID:
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.
