Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2008, 215(2)

Comparison of 30 Immunity-Related Genes from the Common Marmoset with Orthologues from Human and Mouse

KAZUYOSHI KOHU,¹ EIJI YAMABE,¹ AYAKO MATSUZAWA,¹ DAISUKE ONDA,¹ HIROSHI SUEMIZU,² ERIKA SASAKI,² YOSHIKUNI TANIOKA,² HIDEO YAGITA,³ DAISUKE SUZUKI,⁴ YOSHIE KAMETANI,⁴ TOSHIYUKI TAKAI,⁵ ATSUSHI TOYODA,⁶ SONOKO HABU⁴ and MASANOBU SATAKE¹

¹Department of Molecular Immunology, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
²Central Institute for Experimental Animals, Kawasaki, Japan
³Department of Immunology, Juntendo University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan
⁴Department of Immunology, Tokai University School of Medicine, Isehara, Japan
⁵Department of Experimental Immunology, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
⁶RIKEN Genomic Sciences Center, Yokohama, Japan

In the evolution of primates, the common marmoset belongs to the new world monkey family and is distinct from the great ape family (which includes humans). In this study, we predicted the amino acid sequences of 30 immunity-related genes from the common marmoset and compared them with those from human and mouse. The domain composition of each orthologous protein was analyzed by the SMART tool and was found to be the same among the three species. A BLAST search revealed that the common marmoset and human proteins were 86% identical on average, whereas the conservation between the common marmoset and mouse or between the human and mouse was only 60%. This indicates that the common marmoset and human proteins are closely related and are similarly divergent from the mouse. We divided the 30 proteins into two categories based on the degree of conservation between the common marmoset and mouse amino acid sequences. One group included 19 proteins and had a relatively high level of conservation (68% identical), whereas the other 11 proteins were less conserved (45% identical). This suggests that these immunity-related genes do not evolve at a uniform rate. Interestingly, however, ligand/receptor pairs such as interleukin-6 and interleukin-6 receptor appear to have evolved simultaneously.

keywords —— common marmoset; evolution; immunity-related genes; orthologues; cDNA.

© 2008 Tohoku University Medical Press

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Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2008, 215, 167-180

Correspondence: Masanobu Satake, M.D., Department of Molecular Immunology, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Seiryo-machi 4-1, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8575, Japan.

e-mail: satake@idac.tohoku.ac.jp