Comparison of the sequences of Turbo and Sulculus indoleamine dioxygenase-like myoglobin genes.

Some archaeogastropodic molluscs, including Sulculus and Turbo, contain an unusual approximately 40 kDa myoglobin in their buccal masses. This myoglobin can bind oxygen reversibly, but has a lower oxygen affinity than vertebrate and invertebrate myoglobins. Amino acid sequences clearly show that Sulculus and Turbo myoglobins evolved not from the globin gene but from the gene for indoleamine dioxygenase (IDO), a tryptophan-degrading enzyme. The Turbo myoglobin gene has been determined to consist of 14 exons and 13 introns. Compared with the known Sulculus IDO-like myoglobin gene, all splice junctions except two are conserved exactly between the two genes. The exon/intron organization of these myoglobin genes is also highly homologous with human IDO (ten exon/nine intron structure); splice junctions of six introns were exactly conserved among the three genes, suggesting that these introns have been conserved for at least 600 million years. To look for putative IDO genes in Turbo or Sulculus, we re-examined the genomic DNA fragments amplified by PCR in full detail, and found intron 2 in two distinct Sulculus fragments (A and B). Fragment A with a 576 bp intron corresponded exactly to the myoglobin gene of Sulculus. On the other hand, fragment B, containing a 239 bp intron, differed significantly from fragment A in nucleotide and translated amino acid sequences. Detailed sequence comparison suggests that fragment B may be derived from a putative IDO gene of Sulculus.