MOLECULAR CHARACTERIZATION AND FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF GIBEL CARP DMRT2b

HeGibel carp (Carassius auratus gibelio) is a good model animal for evolutionary developmental biology. Our previous studies have already identified a novel fish-specific duplicated gene dmrt2b from gibel carp. Then we found that, in zebrafish, duplicated genes dmrt2b and dmrt2a played common overlapping functions in the establishment of left-right asymmetry of the body plan, and dmrt2b contributed to a divergent function in somitogenesis through Hedge-hog pathway, but dmrt2a did not contribute to Hedgehog pathway. In this study, we cloned the full-length cDNA of gibel carp dmrt2b. The entire dmrt2b cDNA sequence was 1938 bp long and the open read frame was 1014 long, which en-coded a protein with 337 amino acids. Gibel carp dmrt2b had a genomic organization similar to zebrafish dmrt2b, which had same numbers and positions of exons and introns. Therefore, gibel carp dmrt2b and zebrafish dmrt2b were orthologs. Then we analyzed expression pattern and functions involved of gibel carp dmrt2b during embryogenesis. By whole mount in situ hybridization, we found gibel carp dmrt2b mainly localized in the somites during embryogenesis. Then it mainly expressed in muscle of adult fish. This expression pattern was also similar to that of zebrafish dmrt2b. Microin-jection of gibel carp dmrt2b mRNA into zebrafish dmrt2b morphants could rescue the phenotype. Above results sug-gested that gibel carp dmrt2b might have the same function with zebrafish dmrt2b during the embryogenesis.