Chromosomal location, exon/intron organization and evolution of lipocalin genes

Lipocalins exhibit low sequence similarity that contrasts with a tightly conserved folding shared by all members of this superfamily. This conserved folding can be, at least partly, accounted for by a highly conserved gene structure. The array of lipocalin genes that have so far been studied mostly in mammals indicate a large conservation of a typical seven exon/six intron arrangement. Other conserved features include a partly coding exon 1 of variable size, fixed sizes of exons 2-5 that code for an array of lipocalin-specific beta-strands and a tendency of the last exons to either fuse or expand into further exons without major changes in the length of the resulting open reading frame. The conserved exon/intron arrangement as well as a clustering of most lipocalin genes in given chromosomes of human and mouse indicate that the lipocalin genes diverged from a shared ancestor by successive rounds of duplications followed by late changes in exon arrangements.