Evolution of the TGF-beta superfamily with emphasis on Nodal

Nodal is a ligand of the TGF-beta superfamily. It has the function of determining the left-right axis and inducing the endoderm and mesoderm. Nodal signals can also act as morphogens. Although it has been detected for 20 years, the relationships between different species within Nodal are still uncle...

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Main Author: Shen, Yuan
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2014
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13879/
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author Shen, Yuan
author_facet Shen, Yuan
author_sort Shen, Yuan
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Nodal is a ligand of the TGF-beta superfamily. It has the function of determining the left-right axis and inducing the endoderm and mesoderm. Nodal signals can also act as morphogens. Although it has been detected for 20 years, the relationships between different species within Nodal are still unclear. The purpose of this study is to investigate the evolution of the TGF-beta gene with the main focus on Nodal. That is: (1) to determine the relationships within the Nodal family; (2) to examine whether Nodal is duplicated or not during evolution. To achieve this, whether Nodal is monophyletic or not and the relationship of Nodal with other ligands in the TGF-beta superfamily will be examined first. The phylogenetic trees to examine the relationships among the ligands are built under software PhyML with the Maximum Likelihood method. As a result, Nodal is monophyletic, but its neighbour ligand or ligand group is nonetheless uncertain. This study demonstrates that the fish sequences are all in the group in which the bird Nodal is located. Duplication of Nodal has occurred when vertebrates evolved from Urochordata. In addition, deletions have occurred in birds and mammals.
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spelling nottingham-138792025-02-28T11:27:31Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13879/ Evolution of the TGF-beta superfamily with emphasis on Nodal Shen, Yuan Nodal is a ligand of the TGF-beta superfamily. It has the function of determining the left-right axis and inducing the endoderm and mesoderm. Nodal signals can also act as morphogens. Although it has been detected for 20 years, the relationships between different species within Nodal are still unclear. The purpose of this study is to investigate the evolution of the TGF-beta gene with the main focus on Nodal. That is: (1) to determine the relationships within the Nodal family; (2) to examine whether Nodal is duplicated or not during evolution. To achieve this, whether Nodal is monophyletic or not and the relationship of Nodal with other ligands in the TGF-beta superfamily will be examined first. The phylogenetic trees to examine the relationships among the ligands are built under software PhyML with the Maximum Likelihood method. As a result, Nodal is monophyletic, but its neighbour ligand or ligand group is nonetheless uncertain. This study demonstrates that the fish sequences are all in the group in which the bird Nodal is located. Duplication of Nodal has occurred when vertebrates evolved from Urochordata. In addition, deletions have occurred in birds and mammals. 2014-03-15 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13879/1/Thesis_Correction_-_Copy.pdf Shen, Yuan (2014) Evolution of the TGF-beta superfamily with emphasis on Nodal. MPhil thesis, University of Nottingham. Transforming growth factors-beta Ligands Nodal duplication Monophyletic
spellingShingle Transforming growth factors-beta
Ligands
Nodal duplication
Monophyletic
Shen, Yuan
Evolution of the TGF-beta superfamily with emphasis on Nodal
title Evolution of the TGF-beta superfamily with emphasis on Nodal
title_full Evolution of the TGF-beta superfamily with emphasis on Nodal
title_fullStr Evolution of the TGF-beta superfamily with emphasis on Nodal
title_full_unstemmed Evolution of the TGF-beta superfamily with emphasis on Nodal
title_short Evolution of the TGF-beta superfamily with emphasis on Nodal
title_sort evolution of the tgf-beta superfamily with emphasis on nodal
topic Transforming growth factors-beta
Ligands
Nodal duplication
Monophyletic
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13879/