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Microinjection for Transgenesis and Genome Editing in Threespine Sticklebacks
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Lizard and frog prestin: evolutionary insight into functional changes.

Jie Tang1, Jason L Pecka, Bernd Fritzsch

  • 1Department of Biomedical Sciences, Creighton University School of Medicine, Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America.

Plos One
|January 24, 2013
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Lizard and frog prestins exhibit advanced transport and nonlinear capacitance but lack motor function, unlike mammalian prestin. This suggests an intermediate evolutionary step before motor capability acquisition.

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Area of Science:

  • Evolutionary biology
  • Molecular biology
  • Auditory science

Background:

  • Prestin, a motor protein in mammalian cochlear outer hair cells, is vital for hearing.
  • Prestin orthologs in non-mammals like zebrafish and chickens function as anion exchangers without motor activity.
  • Understanding prestin evolution across tetrapod lineages offers insights into auditory function development.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the evolutionary trajectory of prestin by examining the sequence and function of lizard and frog prestins.
  • To determine the structural and functional differences between mammalian, non-mammalian, and amphibian/reptilian prestin orthologs.
  • To identify the evolutionary stage of prestin in amphibians and reptiles concerning motor function and transport capabilities.

Main Methods:

  • Comparative analysis of amino acid sequences from lizard and frog prestin genomes.
  • Functional characterization of lizard and frog prestins in human embryonic kidney cells using voltage-clamp techniques.
  • Measurement of somatic motility, voltage-dependent nonlinear capacitance (NLC), and transport capability via radioisotope assays.

Main Results:

  • Lizard and frog prestins possess transport capabilities comparable to chicken prestin.
  • Lizard prestin displays more robust nonlinear capacitance (NLC) than chicken prestin, approaching platypus levels.
  • Neither lizard nor frog prestin demonstrated motor capability, lacking the key 11-amino-acid motif found in mammalian prestin.

Conclusions:

  • Lizard and frog prestins represent an intermediate evolutionary stage, showing enhanced function over avian orthologs but not yet possessing motor capabilities.
  • The absence of the 11-amino-acid motif in amphibian and reptilian prestins correlates with the lack of motor function.
  • Prestin's evolution involved stepwise acquisition of functional properties, with motor function emerging later in mammalian lineages.