Cross-Species Comparison of Known and Predicted GDF-9 and GDF-9B Protein Sequences

Luke Jeffery, David Mottershead & Olli Ritvos
Program of Developmental and Reproductive Biology, Biomedicum Helsinki
University of Helsinki
telephone : +358-9-191 25662
fax : +358-9-191 25664
email : luke.jeffery@emce.fi

Growth differentiation factors -9 and –9B (GDF-9 and GDF-9B) form a distinct homology subset of the transforming growth factor-b (TGF-b) superfamily, and are important during follicular development of vertebrate species. Sequences for these proteins have been previously identified for 5 vertebrate species.

We overlapped whole genome shotgun (WGS) sequence fragments and expressed sequence tags (ESTs) to infer sequences for the mature regions of GDF-9 and GDF-9B in a larger number of vertebrates (10 species for GDF-9 and 12 for GDF9-B). This enabled cross-species comparisons of the proteins.

The resulting sequence alignments enabled us to perform preliminary cross-species sequence observations and predicted structural analyses. Preliminary modelling was performed for the two human proteins using the SWISS-MODEL algorithm. As a result of these analyses, interesting patterns of conservation and specialization were observed at putative receptor binding sights, consistent with suggested differences between GDF-9 and GDF-9B.

 

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