Figure 7

Genomic structure of C. elegans AADC genes compared with Human DDC. Rectangular blocks represent coding exons of the genes indicated (relative size of exons is approximate). Red triangles indicate ancient conserved introns found in both Human DDC and at least one of the C. elegans AADC genes; blue triangles indicate introns conserved among C. elegans AADC genes; and open triangles indicate non-conserved splice sites (comparing only among the genes shown). Roman numerals above triangles indicate the phase of the intron. Vertical dashed lines between solid triangles indicate splice sites conserved between at least two genes. Diagonal dashed lines indicate probable conserved sites that are shifted by 2–3 amino acids relative to the other splice site. Alignments of homologous splice sites are based on amino acid multiple alignments of the predicted proteins; insertions and deletions are ignored in the drawing. No alternative splicing is indicated; the most readily "alignable" version of each gene was used in cases with multiple splice variants. Dashed boxes at the ends of genes indicate non-AADC homologous extensions unique to the given gene. The most divergent AADC, C09G9.4, is more difficult to align; assignments of splice sites on either side of exon 9 as conserved are more tentative (indicated by question marks). In a few cases where gaps occur in the protein sequence alignments at intron-exon boundaries, introns marked as homologous only begin or end at an homologous location. The splicing pattern shown is fully supported by cDNA sequences for C05D2.4/bas-1, F12A10.3, K01C8.3, ZK829.2 ; the pattern is supported by partial cDNA sequences for C05D2.3 and C09G9.4. The extent of supporting cDNA sequence is shown by the heavy black line beneath the colored blocks. F12A10.3 is a special case in that frameshifts (indicated by 'fs') occur in the cDNA relative to the AADC homologous sequence. The first frameshift occurs at a site where many AADCs are spliced (and where a splice is incorrectly predicted by gene prediction programs), and the second at a splice junction.