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BioMed Central, BMC Genomics, 1(9), p. 120

DOI: 10.1186/1471-2164-9-120

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Evolution of the hepcidin gene in primates

Journal article published in 2008 by Ludovica Segat ORCID, Alessandra Pontillo ORCID, Michele Milanese, Alessandro Tossi, Sergio Crovella
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Background: Hepcidin/LEAP-1 is an iron regulatory hormone originally identified as an antimicrobial peptide. As part of a systematic analysis of the evolution of host defense peptides in primates, we have sequenced the orthologous gene from 14 species of non-human primates. Results: The sequence of the mature peptide is highly conserved amongst all the analyzed species, being identical to the human one in great apes and gibbons, with a single residue conservative variation in Old-World monkeys and with few substitutions in New-World monkeys. Conclusion: Our analysis indicates that hepcidin's role as a regulatory hormone, which involves interaction with a conserved receptor (ferroportin), may result in conservation over most of its sequence, with the exception of the stretch between residues 15 and 18, which in New-World monkeys (as well as in other mammals) shows a significant variation, possibly indicating that this structural region is involved in other functions