Genome diversification mechanism of rodent and Lagomorpha chemokine genes.

ABSTRACT: Chemokines are a large family of small cytokines that are involved in host defence and body homeostasis through recruitment of cells expressing their receptors. Their genes are known to undergo rapid evolution. Therefore, the number and content of chemokine genes can be quite diverse among the different species, making the orthologous relationships often ambiguous even between closely related species. Given that rodents and rabbit are useful experimental models in medicine and drug development, we have deduced the chemokine genes from the genome sequences of several rodent species and rabbit and compared them with those of human and mouse to determine the orthologous relationships. The interspecies differences should be taken into consideration when experimental results from animal models

SUBMITTER: Shibata K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3749542 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature