This Article OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE Full Text Full Text (PDF) Monodelphis domestica Genome Supplemental Research Data All Versions of this Article: gr.6121807v1 17/7/982    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Belov, K. Articles by Papenfuss, A. T. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Belov, K. Articles by Papenfuss, A. T. Related Content Related Articles Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Letter

Characterization of the opossum immune genome provides insights into the evolution of the mammalian immune system

¹ Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney, Sydney NSW 2006, Australia; ² ARC Centre for Kangaroo Genomics, Research School of Biological Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia; ³ Bioinformatics Division, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville 3050, Australia; ⁴ Department of Medical Biology, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia; ⁵ European Bioinformatics Institute, Cambridge CB10 1SD, United Kingdom; ⁶ Immunology Division, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 5DS, United Kingdom

The availability of the first marsupial genome sequence has allowed us to characterize the immunome of the gray short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica). Here we report the identification of key immune genes, including the highly divergent chemokines, defensins, cathelicidins, and Natural Killer cell receptors. It appears that the increase in complexity of the mammalian immune system occurred prior to the divergence of the marsupial and eutherian lineages 180 million years ago. Genomes of ancestral mammals most likely contained all of the key mammalian immune gene families, with evolution on different continents, in the presence of different pathogens leading to lineage specific expansions and contractions, resulting in some minor differences in gene number and composition between different mammalian lineages. Gene expansion and extensive heterogeneity in opossum antimicrobial peptide genes may have evolved as a consequence of the newborn young needing to survive without an adaptive immune system in a pathogen laden environment. Given the similarities in the genomic architecture of the marsupial and eutherian immune systems, we propose that marsupials are ideal model organisms for the study of developmental immunology.

E-mail kbelov{at}vetsci.usyd.edu.au; fax 61-2-9351-3957.

[Supplemental material is available online at www.genome.org.]

Article published online before print. Article and publication date are at http://www.genome.org/cgi/doi/10.1101/gr.6121807

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?

Related Articles

Evolutionary dynamics of transposable elements in the short-tailed opossum Monodelphis domestica

Andrew J. Gentles, Matthew J. Wakefield, Oleksiy Kohany, Wanjun Gu, Mark A. Batzer, David D. Pollock, and Jerzy Jurka
Genome Res. 2007 17: 992-1004. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. M. Whittington, A. T. Papenfuss, P. Bansal, A. M. Torres, E. S.W. Wong, J. E. Deakin, T. Graves, A. Alsop, K. Schatzkamer, C. Kremitzki, et al. Defensins and the convergent evolution of platypus and reptile venom genes Genome Res., June 1, 2008; 18(6): 986 - 994. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				K. A. Daly, C. Lefevre, K. Nicholas, E. Deane, and P. Williamson CD14 and TLR4 are expressed early in tammar (Macropus eugenii) neonate development J. Exp. Biol., April 15, 2008; 211(8): 1344 - 1351. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				A. C. Tzika, R. Helaers, Y. Van de Peer, and M. C. Milinkovitch MANTIS: a phylogenetic framework for multi-species genome comparisons Bioinformatics, January 15, 2008; 24(2): 151 - 157. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]