A millennial myosin census.
Journal: 2001/July - Molecular Biology of the Cell
ISSN: 1059-1524
PUBMED: 11294886
Abstract:
The past decade has seen a remarkable explosion in our knowledge of the size and diversity of the myosin superfamily. Since these actin-based motors are candidates to provide the molecular basis for many cellular movements, it is essential that motility researchers be aware of the complete set of myosins in a given organism. The availability of cDNA and/or draft genomic sequences from humans, Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, Arabidopsis thaliana, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, and Dictyostelium discoideum has allowed us to tentatively define and compare the sets of myosin genes in these organisms. This analysis has also led to the identification of several putative myosin genes that may be of general interest. In humans, for example, we find a total of 40 known or predicted myosin genes including two new myosins-I, three new class II (conventional) myosins, a second member of the class III/ninaC myosins, a gene similar to the class XV deafness myosin, and a novel myosin sharing at most 33% identity with other members of the superfamily. These myosins are in addition to the recently discovered class XVI myosin with N-terminal ankyrin repeats and two human genes with similarity to the class XVIII PDZ-myosin from mouse. We briefly describe these newly recognized myosins and extend our previous phylogenetic analysis of the myosin superfamily to include a comparison of the complete or nearly complete inventories of myosin genes from several experimentally important organisms.
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Mol Biol Cell 12(4): 780-794

A Millennial Myosin Census

Department of Cell and Molecular Physiology, CB#7545, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599
Corresponding author. E-mail: ude.cnu.dem@ryenehc.

Abstract

The past decade has seen a remarkable explosion in our knowledge of the size and diversity of the myosin superfamily. Since these actin-based motors are candidates to provide the molecular basis for many cellular movements, it is essential that motility researchers be aware of the complete set of myosins in a given organism. The availability of cDNA and/or draft genomic sequences from humans, Drosophila melanogaster, Caenorhabditis elegans, Arabidopsis thaliana, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Schizosaccharomyces pombe, and Dictyostelium discoideum has allowed us to tentatively define and compare the sets of myosin genes in these organisms. This analysis has also led to the identification of several putative myosin genes that may be of general interest. In humans, for example, we find a total of 40 known or predicted myosin genes including two new myosins-I, three new class II (conventional) myosins, a second member of the class III/ninaC myosins, a gene similar to the class XV deafness myosin, and a novel myosin sharing at most 33% identity with other members of the superfamily. These myosins are in addition to the recently discovered class XVI myosin with N-terminal ankyrin repeats and two human genes with similarity to the class XVIII PDZ-myosin from mouse. We briefly describe these newly recognized myosins and extend our previous phylogenetic analysis of the myosin superfamily to include a comparison of the complete or nearly complete inventories of myosin genes from several experimentally important organisms.

Abstract

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The catalogue of myosins summarized here is the result of many years of effort by our colleagues in myosin and genome research. We regret that many valuable contributions had to be left out or could only be cited via reviews and accession numbers. We especially thank David Corey (myosin-VIIb), Richard Cameron and Krishna Patel (class XVI myr8), and Meg Titus (C. elegans and Dictyostelium myosins) for valuable discussions. We also thank Tom Pollard and Olga Rodriguez for helpful comments and suggestions. The authors and this work were supported by National Institutes of Health grant DC03299.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Abbreviations used:

aaamino acid
acc. no.accession number
BACbacterial artificial chromosome
ESTexpressed sequence tag
GAPGTPase-activating protein
Abbreviations used:

Notes added in proof.

Manuscripts describing the sequence of the human genome were recently published by the International Human Genome Sequenceing Consortium (Nature 409, 860–921) and Celera Genomics (Science 291, 1301–1351). Our most recent analyses of these sequences identified no additional myosin genes. Suprisingly, many well-known myosins were absent, truncated, or fragmented into multiple predicted genes in the preliminary automated annotations of the human genome.

Preliminary analysis of myosin-XVb suggests that this gene might be a transcribed pseudogene (Erich Boger and Tom Friedman, personal communication). It is possible that other myosin genes predicted from genomic sequence are also pseudogenes, however, recent work has shown that the HA-2 minor histocompatibility antigen involved in graft-versus-host disease is derived from the novel class I myosin predicted from chromosome 7 genomic sequence, confirming that MYO1G is transcribed and translated. Although the function of “myosin-Ig” is still unclear, its expression appears to be limited to hematopoetic cells (Rich Pierce and Victor H. Engelhard, personal communication).

Notes added in proof.

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