Title

Evolutionary analysis of PHLPP1 gene in humans and non-human primates

Authors

Padmanabhan Anbazhagan^{1, 2}, Meera Purushottam¹, H. B. Kiran Kumar¹, Shobana Kubendran¹_, Odity Mukherjee², Samir Kumar Brahmachari³, Sanjeev Jain¹ and Ramanathan Sowdhamini^{2, *}

Affiliation

¹Molecular Genetics Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India; ²National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, India; ³Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, Delhi, India

Email

mini@ncbs.res.in

91-80-23666250

91-80-23636662; * Corresponding author

Article Type

Hypothesis

Date

received June 11, 2008; revised July 06, 2008; accepted July 26, 2008; published August 01, 2008

Abstract

The chromosome 18q22-23 region has been shown to be implicated in bipolar disorder (BPAD) by several studies. PHLPP1 gene, in the locus (chromosome 18q22-23), is involved in circadian pathways and bears modules like ‘PH domain and leucine rich repeat protein phosphatase’. This gene also contains a polyglutamine (CAG or PolyQ) repeat motif at the carboxyl terminal end. A comparative analysis of the PolyQ repeats of the PHLPP1 gene in humans, non-human primates and other species has been attempted in order to investigate the possible significance of repeat length as seen in other triplet-repeat associated diseases. Sequencing of the CAG repeat in humans and in non-human primates revealed that the CAG repeat is not polymorphic in humans; whereas, in other species it shows an area of high variability, both in length and sequence composition. Despite the conservation of circadian clock components in different species, there is remarkable diversity in the protein structure, regulation and biochemical functions of the circadian orthologs. These can be due to specific adaptations in accordance with the physiology of the particular species providing a species-specific biological advantage.

Keywords

PHLPP1; bipolar disorder; CAG repeat; PolyQ; phylogenetic analysis; evolution

Citation

Anbazhagan et al., Bioinformation 2(10): 471-474 (2008)

Edited by

P. Kangueane

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.