Molecular characterization of vasotocin hormone receptors in the sea lamprey to address invasive species ecology and evolution: An Integrated Biosciences approach (2015-10-16)

Abstract

The sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus) is a jawless (agnathan) vertebrate at an evolutionary nexus between invertebrates and jawed (gnathostome) vertebrates. Lampreys are known to possess the arginine vasotocin (AVT) hormone utilized by all non-mammalian vertebrates. I postulated that the lamprey would possess AVT receptor orthologs of the arginine vasopressin (AVP)/oxytocin (OXT) family of G protein-coupled receptors found in mammals. Sequencing of five putative lamprey AVT receptor genes, molecular phylogeny and synteny (analysis of adjacent genes) support the recently proposed hypothesis that one round (1R) of whole-genome duplication (WGD) took place in the vertebrate lineage prior to divergence of the jawless vertebrates approximately 550 million years ago.