PLoS ONE (Jan 2016)

Thrombospondin Type-1 Repeat Domain-Containing Proteins Are Strongly Expressed in the Head Region of Hydra.

  • Kayoko Hamaguchi-Hamada,
  • Mami Kurumata-Shigeto,
  • Sumiko Minobe,
  • Nozomi Fukuoka,
  • Manami Sato,
  • Miyuki Matsufuji,
  • Osamu Koizumi,
  • Shun Hamada

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0151823
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 4
p. e0151823

Abstract

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The head region of Hydra, the hypostome, is a key body part for developmental control and the nervous system. We herein examined genes specifically expressed in the head region of Hydra oligactis using suppression subtractive hybridization (SSH) cloning. A total of 1414 subtracted clones were sequenced and found to be derived from at least 540 different genes by BLASTN analyses. Approximately 25% of the subtracted clones had sequences encoding thrombospondin type-1 repeat (TSR) domains, and were derived from 17 genes. We identified 11 TSR domain-containing genes among the top 36 genes that were the most frequently detected in our SSH library. Whole-mount in situ hybridization analyses confirmed that at least 13 out of 17 TSR domain-containing genes were expressed in the hypostome of Hydra oligactis. The prominent expression of TSR domain-containing genes suggests that these genes play significant roles in the hypostome of Hydra oligactis.