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Bioinformatic Prohormone Discovery in Basal Metazoans: Insights from Trichoplax

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Ctenophores

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 2757))

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Abstract

Experimental discovery of neuropeptides and peptide hormones is a long and tedious task. Mining the genomic and transcriptomic sequence data with robust secretory peptide prediction tools can significantly facilitate subsequent experiments. We describe the application of various in silico neuropeptide discovery methods for the placozoan Trichopax adhaerens as an illustrated example and a powerful experimental paradigm for cellular and evolutionary biology. In total, 33 placozoan (neuro)peptide-like hormone precursors were found using homology-based BLAST search and repeat-based and comparative evolutionary methods. Some of the discovered precursors are homologous to insulins and RFamide precursors from Cnidaria and other animal phyla.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research #18–29-13014mk grant. This work was also supported in part by the Human Frontiers Science Program (RGP0060/2017) and National Science Foundation (IOS-1557923) grants to L.L.M. Research reported in this publication was also supported in part by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01NS114491 (to L.L.M). D.R. and M.A.N. were supported by the Russian Science Foundation grant (23-14-00050). The content is solely the authors’ responsibility and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Belozersky Institute for Physico-Chemical Biology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation

    Mikhail A. Nikitin

  2. Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission Problems, RAS, Moscow, Russian Federation

    Mikhail A. Nikitin

  3. Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology of RAS, Moscow, Russian Federation

    Mikhail A. Nikitin & Daria Y. Romanova

  4. Department of Neuroscience and McKnight Brain Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Leonid L. Moroz

  5. Whitney Laboratory for Marine Biosciences University of Florida, St. Augustine, FL, USA

    Leonid L. Moroz

Authors
  1. Mikhail A. Nikitin
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  2. Daria Y. Romanova
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  3. Leonid L. Moroz
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Correspondence to Leonid L. Moroz .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, University of Florida, St. Augustine, FL, USA

    Leonid L. Moroz

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Nikitin, M.A., Romanova, D.Y., Moroz, L.L. (2024). Bioinformatic Prohormone Discovery in Basal Metazoans: Insights from Trichoplax. In: Moroz, L.L. (eds) Ctenophores. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2757. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3642-8_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3642-8_22

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  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-3641-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-3642-8

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