Identification of novel tropomyosin 1 genes of pufferfish (Fugu rubripes) on genomic sequences and tissue distribution of their transcripts.

Fugu genome database enabled us to identify two novel tropomyosin 1 (TPM1) genes through in silico data mining and isolation of their corresponding cDNAs in vivo. The duplicate TPM1 genes in Japanese pufferfish Fugu rubripes suggest that additional an ancient segmental duplication or whole genome duplication occurred in fish lineage, which, like many other reported Fugu genes, showed reduction in genomic size in comparison with their human homologue. Computer analysis predicted that the coiled-coil probabilities, that were thought to be the most major function of TPM, were the same between the two TPM1 isoforms. We confirmed that the tissue expression profiles of the two TPM1 genes differed from each other, which implied that changes in expression pattern could fix duplicated TPM1 genes although the two TPM1 isoforms appear to have similar function.