Neuropeptide Evolution: Chelicerate Neurohormone and Neuropeptide Genes may reflect one or more whole genome duplications.

Veenstra JA(1).

Author information:
(1)INCIA UMR 5287 CNRS, Université de Bordeaux, Pessac, France. Electronic
address: .

Four genomes and two transcriptomes from six Chelicerate species were analyzed
for the presence of neuropeptide and neurohormone precursors and their GPCRs. The
genome from the spider Stegodyphus mimosarum yielded 87 neuropeptide precursors
and 101 neuropeptide GPCRs. High neuropeptide transcripts were also found in the
trancriptomes of three other spiders, Latrodectus hesperus, Parasteatoda
tepidariorum and Acanthoscurria geniculata. For the scorpion Mesobuthus martensii
the numbers are 79 and 74 respectively. The very small genome of the house dust
mite, Dermatophagoides farinae, on the other hand contains a much smaller number
of such genes. A few new putative Arthropod neuropeptide genes were discovered.
Thus, both spiders and the scorpion have an achatin gene and in spiders there are
two different genes encoding myosuppressin-like peptides while spiders also have
two genes encoding novel LGamides. Another finding is the presence of trissin in
spiders and scorpions, while neuropeptide genes that seem to be orthologs of
Lottia LFRYamide and Platynereis CCRFamide were also found. Such genes were also
found in various insect species, but seem to be lacking from the Holometabola.
The Chelicerate neuropeptide and neuropeptide GPCR genes often have paralogs. As
the large majority of these are probably not due to local gene duplications, is
not impossible that they reflect the effects of one or more ancient whole genome
duplications.

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