Organization, structure, and expression of the goat globin genes

Several hemoglobin switches occur during the development of the goat, making this a useful animal for the study of globin gene expression. In order to help understand the basis for these switches, we have isolated the beta-globin genes of the goat by recombinant DNA technology and characterized these genes with respect to linkage, nucleotide sequence, and expression. The linkage arrangement so far established is epsilon I-epsilon II-psi beta X-beta C-epsilon III-epsilon IV-psi beta Z-beta A-epsilon V. It is proposed that epsilon V is followed by epsilon VI-psi beta-gamma, but so far this linkage has not been established. Several conclusions can be drawn from our findings to date. First, the beta- and gamma-globin genes of the goat have a very different evolutionary history from the beta- and gamma-globin genes of humans. While the beta and gamma genes of the human can be traced to a duplication of the ancestral epsilon/beta-globin gene before the mammalian radiation, the goat beta and gamma genes have arisen much later, and are probably the results of a duplication of a four-gene set, namely the epsilon-epsilon-psi beta-beta primordial linkage group. The beta C gene probably arose from a similar, even later duplication of the non-gamma quadruplet. Because the beta C, beta A, and gamma genes of the goat have diverged much more recently in evolution, they are much more homologous than the equivalent genes in other species. In fact, there are large regions of these genes that share identical sequences. This is meaningful in that regions of sequence identity define areas that cannot be involved in the developmental regulation of these genes.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)