Abstract
AF4/FMR2 family member (AFF) proteins are a group of transcriptional regulators that can regulate gene transcription and play an important role in cellular physiological processes such as proliferation and differentiation. The transcriptome data of the lamprey spinal cord injury were analyzed in previous research. We then identified a hub gene, Lr-AFF3, from this dataset. Phylogenetic tree analysis determined the evolutionary relationships of the AFF gene family across different species. In addition, analysis of motifs, domains, and 3D structures further confirmed the conservatism of the AFF gene family. In particular, the gene structure of the AFF3 gene was not conserved, possibly because of intron insertion. It was also found that the neighboring genes of the Lr-AFF3 gene had a higher diversity than that in jawed vertebrates through synteny analysis. The results of the MTT and EdU experiments showed that the C-terminal homology domain (CHD) and N-terminal homology domain (NHD) of Lr-AFF3 promoted cell proliferation. In summary, our research will not only provide new insights into the origin and evolution of the AFF gene family in different species, but also provide new clues for the functions of Lr_AFF3.
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Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31801973), the Project of the Educational Department of Liaoning Province (No. LJKQZ2021087), and High Lever Talent Innovation Support Project from Dalian (No. 2019RQ126).
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Peng Su design overall project; Xinyu Du conduct Edu, MTT experiments, and collect experimental data; Difan Sun write article. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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Communicated by Matthias Hammerschmidt.
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Sun, D., Du, X. & Su, P. Molecular evolution of transcription factors AF4/FMR2 family member (AFF) gene family and the role of lamprey AFF3 in cell proliferation. Dev Genes Evol (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-024-00717-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-024-00717-1