The metazoan history of the COE transcription factors. Selection of a variant HLH motif by mandatory inclusion of a duplicated exon in vertebrates

Abstract

Three main features in the history of the coe gene family can be inferred from these analyses: (i) each conserved domain of the ancestral coe gene was built from multiple exons and the same scattered structure has been maintained throughout metazoan evolution. (ii) There exists a single coe gene copy per metazoan genome except in vertebrates. The H2a-H2d duplication that is specific to vertebrate proteins provides an example of a novel vertebrate characteristic, which may have been fixed early in the gnathostome lineage. (iii) This duplication provides an interesting example of counter-selection of alternative splicing.