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Figure 3 | BMC Evolutionary Biology

Figure 3

From: Lineage-specific co-evolution of the Egf receptor/ligand signaling system

Figure 3

Synteny and evolution of human EGFR ligand regions. A) The surroundings of human EGFR ligand genes were analyzed with the Synteny Database [21]. Dot plots of paralogous genes in the human genome are displayed in red. The HBEGF gene region (blue circle) on Hsa5 was used as reference. Paralogs are indicated by red crosses and are found around the other EGFR ligand regions on Hsa2 (TGFA, green circle) and Hsa4 (EGF and ligand cluster, gray-red circle). Chromosomes Hsa10 and to a lesser degree also Hsa13 and Hsa8 share many paralogous connections with the HBEGF region. Similar pictures were obtained using other EGFR ligand regions as reference. B) Circle plot of paralogous genes from the human EGFR ligand regions as obtained from the Synteny Database[21]. Many paralogous connections are found between the EGFR ligand regions (red lines). All four regions also share many paralogous connections with Hsa10 (black lines). On Hsa4, several intrachromosomal paralogous connections (green lines) are found. C) Model of Egfr ligand gene family evolution in vertebrates. An ancestral gene on vertebrate protochromosome C was duplicated twice during the R1 and R2 whole genome duplications. The gene on gnathostome protochromosome C0 was lost, while the gene on protochromosome C1 was duplicated intrachromosomally. One of the two descendent genes became Egf, the other one was duplicated in tandem giving rise to the ligand cluster. The protochromosome nomenclature follows ref [22].

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