Author
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COCK, J. MARK - ECOLE NORM SUP LYON FR |
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McCormick, Sheila |
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Submitted to: Plant Physiology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: 7/1/2001 Publication Date: 7/1/2001 Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Receptor kinases are members of large gene families and it was initially hoped that identification of their ligands would facilitate the identification of ligands for other receptor kinases of these gene families. The approach we used to identify CLE genes that are similar to CLV3, one of the ligands, consisted of identifying a conserved motif and using this information to manually select additional gene family members. This approach may be generally applicable to the identification of families of genes that encode small proteins. Technical Abstract: In the study described here, we have searched for genes with similarity to CLV3, a ligand for the receptor kinase CLV1. The high level of sequence diversity is the main reason these genes were not detected in initial database searches. A total of 42 related sequences were identified including 28 genomic sequences and 13 sequences that were represented only by expressed sequence tags (ESTs). We have named these genes CLE (for CLAVATA3/ESR-related). We speculate that the CLE proteins also represent ligands for LRR receptor kinasaes. Small genes, like those of the CLE family, are often overlooked by automated annotation programs. The approach we used to identify the CLE genes consisted of identifying a conserved motif, based on the alignment of a limited number of members of the gene family, and using this information to manually select additional gene family members from a pool of potential paralgoues identified in a sensitive homology search using tBlastn. This approach may be generally applicable to the identification of families of genes that encode small proteins. |
