Oxytocin and arginine vasopressin receptor evolution : implications for adaptative novelties in placental mammals

• Autor(a) principal: Rosa, Pamela Laiz Paré da
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Paixão Côrtes, Vanessa Rodrigues, Rodrigues, Luciana Tovo, Vargas Pinilla, Pedro, Viscardi, Lucas Henriques, Salzano, Francisco Mauro, Henkes, Luiz Ernani, Bortolini, Maria Cátira
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFRGS
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10183/164631
• topic: Ocitocina; Arginina; Evolução molecular; Oxytocin receptor; Arginine vasopressin receptors; Molecular evolution; Protein disorder; Interaction motifs

Oxytocin receptor (OXTR) and arginine vasopressin receptors (AVPR1a, AVPR1b, and AVPR2) are paralogous genes that emerged through duplication events; along the evolutionary timeline, owing to speciation, numerous orthologues emerged as well. In order to elucidate the evolutionary forces that shaped these four genes in placental mammals and to reveal specific aspects of their protein structures, 35 species were selected. Specifically, we investigated their molecular evolutionary history and intrinsic protein disorder content, and identified the presence of short linear interaction motifs. OXTR seems to be under evolutionary constraint in placental mammals, whereas AVPR1a, AVPR1b, and AVPR2 exhibit higher evolutionary rates, suggesting that they have been under relaxed or experienced positive selection. In addition, we describe here, for the first time, that the OXTR, AVPR1a, AVPR1b, and AVPR2 mammalian orthologues preserve their disorder content, while this condition varies among the paralogues. Finally, our results reveal the presence of short linear interaction motifs, indicating possible functional adaptations related to physiological and/or behavioral taxa-specific traits.