Figure 5

Presence and absence of HIN domains in individual species, mapped onto a mammalian species tree[64, 67]. The number of HIN domains indicated must be considered a minimum estimate of the true number of HIN domains, particularly for the genomes with only 2-fold sequence coverage (dolphin, sloth, armadillo, hyrax and wallaby). The duplication of the ancestral gene to generate HIN-A, -B, and -C domains is indicated. Putative points of loss of a functional AIM2 HIN-C domain are marked, consistent with the presence of pseudogenes in a number of species, and likely absence of a gene in pig. Independent loss of AIM2 in dog as indicated, cannot be confirmed due to uncertainty in the phylogenetic relationship between horse, dog and Cetartiodactyla [65]. Armadillo has evidence for an Aim2 HIN-C sequence, but as only one exon is available, this sequence was not used in phylogenetic analysis. Duplications and losses of HIN-A and HIN-B domains are numerous and are not indicated on the species branches here.