Evolution of the ets gene family.

Over the past few years a variety of genes have been described whose protein products share similarity with that of the c-ets-1 proto-oncogene, the cellular counterpart of the v-ets oncogene of the avian E26 retrovirus. This so-called "ets family" of transcription factors includes at least a dozen members present in several organisms. We have questioned the common evolutionary origin of these various gene products. By constructing phylogenetical trees with different methods, we show that the ets family is very ancient since the duplication of the various groups of ets related proteins occurred before the Arthropods/Vertebrates split (ca. 500 million years).