Ψ KRT9 - Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis

Reference Gene:
Job_ID:
Curator:
GlossID Species Gene Loss Mechanism Loss Type Lineage Specific Evidence Accession Nr.
GL_EL9FBR Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis Other Full No Genomic & Synteny maps

Statements

Type Excerpt DOI
Methodology & Validation "We first identified α-keratin gene repertoires in the cow (Bos taurus) (coverage 7×,Btau_4.6.1) [...] taking all the known α-keratin gene sequences of human as queries using BLASTN and TBLASTN algorithm. [...] The putative α-keratin genes in the cow were then taken as queries to explore the α-keratin multigene family in the genome of 11 marine mammals, including [...] Yangtze finless porpoise (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis, unpublished data)." 10.1186/s12983-017-0225-x
Phenotypic "Our results show an apparent reduction in the α-keratin gene repertoire and increased rate of pseudogenization in cetaceans when compared to terrestrial counterparts, which may be associated with their hairless phenotype." 10.1186/s12983-017-0225-x

Curator Observations

The authors named the keratins according to the human nomenclature. Authors consider the gene a "pseudogene", with no further explanation or sequence information provided. As such, the gene loss mechanism is inconclusive. This gene loss is likely to be Cetacea-specific according to the papers' data; however, as the authors don't provide sequence information.