BACKGROUND
tenascins are a family of extracellular matrix glycoproteins charcterized by an n-terminal globular domain and heptad repeats, which facilitate multimerization; one or more tenascin-type epidermal growth factor -like repeats ; a series of fibronectin  type iii domains, and a c-terminal fibrinogen-related domain .
diversity within the family exists at many levels.
each species of vertebrate examined to date has more than one tenascin gene, and the gene products themselves are frequently alternatively spliced .
in addition, electron microscopy reveals purified tenascins with  <dig> arms  as well as trimers, dimers and monomers  <cit> .
tenascins are particularly abundant in the embryonic extracellular matrix, but some reappear in the adult during regeneration, inflammatory disease, tumorigenesis and wound healing  <cit> .
tenascins act through interactions with cell surface receptors  as well as by binding to and blocking sites on other extracellular matrix molecules .
there are  <dig> names for tenascin gene products found in the current literature .
tenascin-c, the first tenascin to be cloned and sequenced  <cit> , has  <dig>   or  <dig>   egf-like repeats and up to  <dig> fn type iii domains.
the prominent expression of tenascin-c in tendons and embryonic extracellular matrix was used to create the name for the gene family, which comes from tenere  and nasci .
tenascin-r was the second member of the tenascin family to be identified  <cit> .
in birds and mammals, tenascin-r genes encode  <dig>  egf-like repeats and  <dig> fn type iii domains.
tenascin-x is the name given to a large mammalian tenascin first identified as "gene x" in the major histocompatibility complex  class iii gene region in both mouse and human  <cit> .
this tenascin has  <dig>  egf-like repeats, and the tenascin-x genes of mouse and human encode  <dig> and  <dig> fn type iii domains, respectively.
the series of fn type iii domains are interrupted in both mouse and human tenascin-x by a proline-rich stretch of about  <dig> amino acids.
tenascin-y  <cit>  is an avian tenascin described as being most similar to mammalian tenascin-x .
the justification for a different name was because the similarity between the fred of tenascin-y and human tenascin-x was considerably lower than that between species orthologs of tenascin-c or tenascin-r. as in tenascin-x, the fn type iii domains of tenascin-y are interrupted by a region containing numerous serine-proline motifs.
a fifth tenascin was eponymously named tenascin-w by weber et al.
<cit> .
tenascin-w from both zebrafish  <cit>  and mouse  <cit>  has  <dig>  egf-like repeats, but a danio rerio tenascin-w cdna encodes five fn type iii domains, whereas a murine cdna encodes  <dig>  the most recent tenascin to be described is tenascin-n  <cit> , which like tenascin-w was named for its discoverer.
only characterized in the mouse, tenascin-n is identical to murine tenascin-w except for three additional fn type iii domains .
no tenascins have been identified in the caenorhabditis elegans genome or in arthropod genomes, and the only complete cdna sequences from poikilotherms come from d. rerio  <cit> .
this has limited the phylogenetic analysis of the origins of tenascins, the identification of evolutionarily conserved regions, domains and potential receptor recognition motifs, as well as the ability to clarify the relationships between the different members of the tenascin gene family.
recently the genomes of a variety of organisms have been completely, or nearly completely, sequenced, facilitating the identification of tenascin genes in fish, amphibians, and invertebrate chordates.
using searches based on conservation of amino acid sequences and domain architecture, we have identified in silico the putative tenascin gene products of the freshwater green pufferfish, tetraodon nigroviridis, the japanese tiger pufferfish, takifugu rubripes, the pipid frog, xenopus tropicalis, and the ascidian, ciona intestinalis.
these studies show that the basic domain architecture of tenascins is highly conserved between an invertebrate chordate and vertebrates and that there are only four members of the tenascin family in vertebrates: tenascin-c, tenascin-r, tenascin-w and tenascin-x.
RESULTS
ciona intestinalis tenascin
analysis of the genomic sequence of the urochordate c. intestinalis  <cit>  using the blat  <cit>  and snap   <cit>  programs reveals a single tenascin-like gene product.
it was necessary to modify this predicted protein by visual inspection of the genomic sequence to remove some parts of predicted exons that did not show any homology to the known tenascins and by the identification of open reading frames complementing missing parts of three of the fibronectin type iii repeats.
the sequence of the n-terminus was confirmed by predicting a potential signal peptide upstream of the egf repeats followed by rt-pcr using primers homologous to the region harboring the methionine n-terminal to the predicted signal peptide and a primer from the previously predicted region.
the coding part of this tenascin gene lies between position 1585– <dig> of scaffold  <dig> that is located on chromosome  <dig> .
the domain organization predicted by smart  <cit>  reveals an n-terminal signal sequence ,  <dig> and 1/ <dig> heptad repeats ,  <dig> tenascin-type egf-like repeats ,  <dig> fn type iii domains  and a fred .
the c-terminal portion of the predicted protein is confirmed by an est  that includes the fred, as well as by the  <dig> ests in gene cluster  <dig> of the cdna resources of the ghost database  <cit> .
in addition, a highly-related gene product is encoded on c. savigyni contig  <dig> .
the corrected c. intestinalis protein sequence has  <dig> aa , a predicted pi of  <dig>  and a molecular mass of  <dig> kda.
a stick diagram of this tenascin, the first reported from an invertebrate, is shown in figure 2b.
note that the third fn type iii domain of c. intestinalis tenascin contains the tripeptide motif rge in a region that is likely to be exposed to receptor binding  <cit>  and that corresponds to the position of the integrin-binding rgd motifs of tenascin-c in many vertebrates .
as others have shown that the rge motif can have similar properties to the rgd motif  <cit> , this may represent an integrin-binding region in tenascin from c. intestinalis.
to analyze the expression pattern of this novel tenascin we raised an antiserum against the second fn type iii domain expressed in e. coli .
in whole mounts this antiserum recognized the thin tunic that envelopes the larva, the extracellular matrix at the base of the tail, and periodically arrayed structures found on either side of the nerve cord that may correspond to the dorsal portions of the primary muscles of the tail .
this latter staining pattern is reminiscent of the immunostaining of the sclerotome in chick and mouse embryos with antibodies against tenascin-c  <cit> .
the tunics of the larvae incubated with preimmune serum were often labelled, but the matrix at the base of the tail and associated with the tail musculature was not .
the genome sequencing of another urochordate, oikopleura dioica, has been completed .
using the hidden markov model on the alignments of all o. dioica freds we could identify a putative tenascin gene in this distinct urochordate as well.
unfortunately, we were not able to identify the entire o. dioica tenascin gene because the genome scaffolds have not been assembled yet .
tetraodon and takifugu each have five tenascins
using a blastp  <cit>  search of predicted proteins from all translated sequences with the chicken tenascin-c fred , four potential tenascin-like sequences were identified in the freshwater pufferfish tetraodon nigroviridis .
these translated sequences were then entered into the blat field of the t. nigroviridis gene browser at genoscope, which returned four predicted tenascin-like proteins: 1) genoscope identifier gstent <dig>  chrun_random: <dig> .20099581; 2) genoscope identifier gstent <dig>  chrun_random: <dig> .1839543; 3) genoscope identifiers gstent <dig>  chr15: <dig> .
<dig> and gstenp <dig>  chr15: <dig> .5850949; and 4) genoscope identifier gstent00028391001; chr15: <dig> .
<dig>  a fifth potential tenascin was identified using a blat search of the t. nigroviridis genome using the fred of a tenascin identified by others  <cit>  in the japanese pufferfish takifugu rubripes .
the tetraodon nigroviridis tenascin sequences were then used to search the genome of the japanese pufferfish takifugu rubripes at the fugu genome browser gateway at ucsc genome bioinformatics and the ncbi fugu genome project.
these searches also revealed five putative tenascin genes: 1) genescan predicted gene scaffold_ <dig>  and sinfrut00000156379; 2) genescan predicted gene scaffold_ <dig>  and sinfrut00000139096; 3) genescan predicted gene scaffold_ <dig>  and sinfrup00000066378; 4) genescan predicted gene scaffold_ <dig>  and sinfrup <dig> and 5) genescan predicted gene scaffold_ <dig>  and sinfrup <dig> .
*the accession numbers xenopus tenascins from the x. tropicalis genome browser gateway  <cit>  the ncbi frog sequence database  <cit>  are listed separately in the text.
pufferfish have two tenascin-cs
two of the predicted tenascin sequences found in the tetraodon nigroviridis genome showed the most similarity to zebrafish, chicken, and the numerous mammalian tenascin-cs following blastp analyses of their freds and first and last fn type iii domains.
both of these tenascins were predicted by smart and visual inspection to include an n-terminal linker, a series of heptad repeats,  <dig>  egf-like repeats and a c-terminal fred.
one of the two sequences contains  <dig> fn type iii domains  and the other contains  <dig> fn type iii domains .
the amino acid sequences of the freds of the two tenascins share 80% identity and 94% similarity .
bayesian inference of the phylogenetic trees predicts that these proteins are more closely related to each other than to any other vertebrate tenascin.
because of their sequence similarity to each other and to other tenascin-cs, overall domain organization, and predicted evolutionary proximity, we will refer to these paralogs as tenascin-ca  and tenascin-cb .
like tenascin-c in gallus gallus and man, tenascin-cb contains an rgd integrin-binding motif in its third fn type iii domain in a region predicted to be exposed to receptor binding.
in tenascin-ca this region contains the potentially reactive motif kgd.
similarly duplicated tenascin-c genes were identified in the takifugu rubripes genome .
smart reveals that one predicted protein  has heptad repeats,  <dig>  tenascin-type egf-like repeats,  <dig> fn type iii domains and a c-terminal fred.
it was also necessary to modify this predicted protein by identifying open reading frames in the genomic sequence that corresponded to missing exons that completed several fn type iii domains.
the domain organization of the corrected tenascin is identical to that of tetraodon nigroviridis tenascin-ca.
the freds of the two pufferfish tenascin-cas are 95% identical and 99% similar.
the second takifugu rubripes tenascin-c  is predicted by smart and direct examination to have heptad repeats,  <dig>  egf-like repeats,  <dig> fn type iii domains and a c-terminal fred.
like tetraodon nigroviridis tenascin-cb, it has an rgd motif in the third fn type iii domain .
the amino acid sequences of the tenascin-cb freds from the two species of pufferfish are 92% identical and 98% similar.
tenascin-r in tetraodon and takifugu
there are two predicted protein sequences lying side-by-side on chromosome  <dig> of t. nigroviridis that, when considered as a single gene product, contain an n-terminal linker, heptad repeats,  <dig>  egf-like repeats,  <dig> fn type iii domains and a c-terminal fred .
phylogenetic analysis of the fred and terminal fn type iii domain show this potential tenascin to be most similar to amniote and zebrafish tenascin-r. like tenascin-r in d. rerio it is adjacent to, and in the opposite orientation from, a tenascin-w gene .
the t. nigroviridis tenascin-r sequence, however, is not complete; the genomic sequence found between the regions encoding the egf-like repeats and fn type iii domains contains approximately  <dig> undetermined nucleotides.
in contrast, the takifugu rubripes tenascin-r , found by blastp of the ncbi protein database, is missing only the signal sequence at the n-terminus.
the remaining predicted protein includes heptad repeats,  <dig>  egf-like repeats,  <dig> fn type iii domains and a c-terminal fred.
alignment of the two pufferfish tenascin-r sequences confirms that the fourth egf-like repeat and first two fn type iii domains of tetraodon nigroviridis are missing from the predicted protein.
the domain architecture of takifugu rubripes tenascin-r is identical to that found in the predicted tenascin-r proteins encoded in genomes of d. rerio, g. gallus, mouse and man .
pufferfish tenascin-r does not contain an rgd motif, but the third fn type iii domains contain an idg motif, which is a potential recognition site for the alpha4/alpha <dig> family of integrins  <cit> .
this motif is also found in the same location on d. rerio, g. gallus, m. musculus and human tenascin-r.
unique repeats in pufferfish tenascin-x
in addition to the blastp searches with the chicken fred sequence , a blat search of the t. nigroviridis genome was carried out using the fred sequence of a partial putative tenascin-x identified by others  <cit>  in takifugu rubripes .
this revealed a novel tenascin with numerous features not yet described in the gene family .
note that it was necessary to identify an exon in the genomic sequence to derive the final amino acid sequence illustrated in figure 4a.
the putative tetraodon nigroviridis tenascin-x is much smaller than mammalian tenascin-x: it encodes at most  <dig> amino acids and is predicted to have a molecular mass of  <dig> kda.
the coils program  predicts that it has heptad repeats near the n-terminus , and smart reveals a single tenascin-type egf-like sequence that, as in tenascin-y, is followed by what may be considered a partial egf-like repeat.
separating the egf-like repeat from one partial and three complete fn type iii domains is a stretch of  <dig> amino acids, many of which are charged or polar.
the first  <dig> amino acids in this region contains numerous charged residues, but a blastp search fails to reveal any similarities between this region and any other sequence.
the next  <dig> residues make up  <dig> complete and one partial copies of a previously undescribed simple tandem repeat of  <dig> amino acids  that mostly contains polar or charged residues.
blastp searches with these repeats fail to reveal significant homologies with proteins from vertebrates, but the region is 43% similar to a collagen-binding, surface protein from bacillus cereus .
the final  <dig> residues of this region are also highly charged and, when examined by blastp on their own, fail to show homologies with other known proteins.
however, when the entire predicted open reading frame of t. nigroviridis tenascin-x is used in a blastp run, the 16-residue repeats and the adjacent 301-residue region are recognized as a duf <dig> domain .
the function of the duf <dig> domain is unknown, but it is found in c. elegans unc- <dig>  a large multidomain protein required for myofibril assembly  <cit> .
the unusual repeat and domain structure of t. nigroviridis tenascin-x is also seen in takifugu rubripes tenascin-x.
this was determined by a blat search of the t. rubripes genome with the fred of tetraodon nigroviridis tenascin-x.
this search revealed a very large predicted protein , which, upon further examination, was found to be composed of three closely clustered but distinctive gene products.
the middle gene encodes a predicted tenascin with one egf-like repeat,  <dig> charged repeats similar to those found in t. nigroviridis tenascin-x interrupted by two partial charged repeats, a charged domain that is 69% identical to amino acids 271– <dig> in t. nigroviridis tenascin-x, one partial and three complete fn type iii domains, and a c-terminal fred.
phylogenetic analysis shows that the freds from the putative pufferfish tenascin-xs are most similar to the freds of chicken tenascin-y and mammalian tenascin-x .
however, the most striking evidence that the unusual tenascin-x of t. nigroviridis is indeed a member of this particular tenascin subfamily is its genomic location: it is found on chromosome  <dig> flanked by the genes encoding cytochrome p <dig> 21-hydroxylase and c <dig> complement .
in mammals, the tenascin-x gene overlaps with the cytochrome p <dig> 21-hydroxylase gene, which is encoded on the opposite strand of dna, and lies adjacent to one of two c <dig> complement genes .
the retinoid x receptor beta gene, which lies next to the c <dig> gene in t. nigroviridis, is also an mhc complex gene in mammals found approximately  <dig> mb from the human tenascin-x gene on chromosome  <dig>  thus, both by sequence homology and by synteny, the small gene encoding a single tenascin-type egf-like sequence and only three complete fn type iii domains corresponds to the t. nigroviridis ortholog of mammalian tenascin-x.
tenascin-w: diversity through domain duplication
a putative gene product with a repeat and domain structure similar to zebrafish tenascin-w was identified in t. nigroviridis .
this tenascin gene encodes an n-terminal linker, heptad repeats,  <dig>  egf-like repeats, four fn type iii domains, and a c-terminal fred.
blastp of the first fn type iii domain, the fourth fn type iii domain, and the fred all reveal that this putative gene product is most similar to tenascin-w from zebrafish and mouse.
a similar tenascin-w was found in the genome of takifugu rubripes , but this tenascin-w has five fn type iii domains instead of four.
there is an rgd motif in the fifth fn type iii domain of t. rubripes tenascin-w, but this motif is not found in tenascin-w from tetraodon nigroviridis.
the predicted tenascin-w orthologs from t. nigroviridis, takifugu rubripes, d. rerio, g. gallus, m. musculus and human all have an n-terminal linker, heptad repeats,  <dig>  egf-like repeats and a c-terminal fred.
they differ, however, in the numbers of fn type iii domains encoded in their respective tenascin-w genes.
the smallest number of domains is seen in tetraodon nigroviridis  and takifugu rubripes ; d. rerio and chicken have  <dig>  mouse has  <dig>  and man has  <dig> fn type iii domains .
despite the differences in numbers of fn type iii domains, each of the tenascin-w genes listed above is found in each genome immediately adjacent to the tenascin-r gene and encoded in the opposite orientation.
for example, in tetraodon nigroviridis the two tenascin genes are separated by only  <dig> kb on chromosome  <dig>  and in mouse the two tenascin genes are only  <dig> kb away from each other on chromosome  <dig>  in d. rerio, the two genes are encoded on chromosome  <dig> .
moreover, the different tenascin-w genes share nearly identical intron/exon organization in each species examined .
in d. rerio, g. gallus, m. musculus and man the first tenascin-w fn type iii domain is encoded on a single exon, the second fn type iii domain is encoded on two exons, and the final fn type iii domain, adjacent to the fred, is encoded on two exons.
the intron/exon junction sites are the same in each of these species.
as in other tenascins, the heptad linkers and egf-like repeats are encoded on a single exon, and the fred is encoded by five exons.
in the pufferfish, tenascin-w is identically encoded except for the first fn type iii domain, which is formed from two exons .
the variation in the numbers of fn type iii domains between the various tenascin-w predicted proteins seems to be the result of repeated duplications of the third fn type iii domain.
there is only one of these domains in t. nigroviridis, and it is encoded by a single exon.
in takifugu rubripes, sequence alignment and tree construction using hidden markov models  analysis  <cit>  reveals that the third fn type iii domain has recently duplicated, resulting in a total of five fn type iii domains.
in d. rerio and g. gallus this domain has duplicated twice, resulting in the  <dig> total fn type iii domains.
evidence of this duplication is provided by the very high sequence similarities between these particular domains, as well as from construction of a phylogenetic tree based on their sequences .
this tree also reveals that the duplications most likely took place after the evolutionary separation of the species examined, since the descendents of the third fn type iii domain are typically most similar within a species than between species.
note that the d. rerio tenascin-w cdna sequence reported by weber et al.
<cit>  only contained five fn type iii repeats.
the extra repeat shown here  was found in the genomic sequence where, like all of the duplicated repeats, it is predicted to be encoded from its own exon.
the presence of this novel fn type iii domain in tenascin-w transcripts was confirmed by rt-pcr using mrna from an adult zebrafish as a source of cdna template and primers corresponding to the end of the fourth fn type iii domain and the beginning of the sixth fn type iii domain .
in the mouse, the  <dig> fn type iii domains are the result of an eight-fold replication of the third domain, and in man the third fn type iii domain is replicated five times.
sequence similarities and phylogenetic analysis also reveal the possible order in which these duplications occurred .
as one might expect, the species with the most third fn type iii domains, the mouse, has some repeats that are very similar to each other: domains 3d and 3f have identical amino acid sequences, as previously noted by neidhardt et al.
<cit> .
xenopus tropicalis tenascins
four tenascin genes were identified in the genome of the amphibian xenopus tropicalis by blat searches of the x. tropicalis genome browser gateway  and by blastp searches of the ncbi frog sequence database  with the fred sequences from chicken and pufferfish tenascins .
the tenascin-c predicted from the x. tropicalis genome , identified by the similarity of its fred sequence with that of fish and amniote tenascin-cs, has heptad repeats near its n-terminus,  <dig>  egf-like repeats, and  <dig> fn type iii domains.
it does not have an rgd or rgd-like motif in its fn type iii domains.
only a partial x. tropicalis tenascin-r sequence is found in the database; it encodes a single fn type iii domain and a fred  at the terminus of scaffold  <dig>  however, a complete tenascin-x was found by combining two predicted proteins .
when combined the single predicted protein contains heptad repeats,  <dig> complete and two partial egf-like repeats,  <dig> fn type iii domains and a c-terminal fred.
between the second and third fn type iii domains is a 649-amino acid region that is not recognized as a known domain by smart.
near the center of this region is a 37-amino acid stretch that shares 70% identity and 89% similarity to part of the serine-proline-rich domain of tenascin-y and 59% identity and 72% similarity to part of the proline-rich domain of human tenascin-x.
the entire region is 38% similar to a portion of unc- <dig>  but the smart program does not predict the presence of a duf <dig> domain.
the fourth tenascin found in the x. tropicalis genome is tenascin-w. it was identified by combining two predicted proteins  using the c-terminal sequence of the former, since this was the most similar to tenascin freds following alignment.
thus assembled, the x. tropicalis tenascin-w gene encodes a signal sequence, heptad repeats,  <dig>  egf-like repeats, five fn type iii domains and a c-terminal fred.
the fourth fn type iii domain contains a potentially active rgd motif and the fifth contains a kgd motif also predicted to be in an exposed loop.
unlike the other tenascin-ws described here , x. tropicalis tenascin-w has  <dig>  egf-like repeats instead of  <dig> , and the fourth  fn type iii domain has duplicated itself once.
analysis of phylogeny and synteny
a summary of the repeat and domain organizations of the novel predicted tenascins and the previously described amniote tenascins is shown in figure  <dig>  phylogenetic reconstruction using bayesian inference based on the fred of the tenascins of pufferfish, x. tropicalis, g. gallus, mouse and man reveals four members of the vertebrate tenascin gene family: tenascin-c, tenascin-r, tenascin-w and tenascin-x .
of these, tenascin-x represents the most distinctive sequence.
a nearly identical tree based on the fred sequences was constructed by maximal likelihood phylogeny .
as reported by chiquet-ehrismann et al.
<cit> , erickson  <cit> , and hughes  <cit> , the freds of tenascin-c and tenascin-r share the most sequence similarity at the protein level, which provides one indication that they are derived from the same relatively recent ancestral duplication event.
this view is strongly supported by a consideration of the organization of the human genome.
the identification of regions of the human genome on different chromosomes that contain many pairs of related genes  has provided strong support for the model that the genomes of modern vertebrates evolved from at least one whole genome duplication in early chordate evolution  <cit> .
the largest region of paralogy in the human genome is that between chromosome 1q, which includes the tenascin-r locus at 1q <dig>  and 9q, which contains the tenascin-c locus at 9q <dig> .
the loci of the tenascin-c and tenascin-r genes are also known to be part of the mhc loci that exist as paralogous regions on chromosomes 1q, 6p, 9q and 19p.
thus, although tenascin-x is the most divergent family member in terms of protein sequence, its gene locus on chromosome 6q <dig>  is paralogous with that of the tenascin-c and -r genes  <cit> .
the paralogy of the mhc region is well-conserved in mice and, according to comparative mapping information, human chromosome  <dig> corresponds to chicken chromosome  <dig>  <cit> .
interestingly, the chicken tenascin-y gene is located on chromosome  <dig> and is in immediate synteny with the complement c <dig>  tap <dig>  tap <dig> and mhc ii-like genes that represent orthologs of the genes present in the human mhciii locus next to the human tenascin-x gene .
as noted above, the gene neighbors of t. nigroviridis tenascin-x also correspond to mhc genes.
this conserved chromosomal location between chicken tenascin-y and its neighboring genes and the human, mouse and t. nigriviridis tenascin-x genes provides the most convincing argument that, despite distinctions in the polypeptide sequences, these genes all represent tenascin orthologs.
although a fourth paralogous mhc gene cluster is encoded on human chromosome 19p13-1- <dig> , no tenascin is encoded in this region, suggesting that this paralog was lost after the initial large-scale duplication events  <cit> .
the locus of tenascin-w adjacent to tenascin-r on chromosome  <dig> is suggestive of a distinct evolutionary origin, for example by local tandem duplication of an ancestral tenascin gene.
because the chromosome  <dig> and  <dig> mhc regions are so well-related as to indicate their origin from the most recent large-scale duplication  <cit> , the positioning of tenascin-w adjacent to tenascin-r suggests either that: 1) this positioning was ancestral to the duplication event and a tenascin gene has been lost or transposed away from adjacent the tenascin-c gene; or 2) the tenascin-w gene arose by a tandem duplication of tenascin-r after the original duplication event and with a relatively rapid rate of change to the polypeptide sequence.
it can also be hypothesized that the tenascin-w gene was transposed from the original locus on chromosome  <dig> into its current location soon after the duplication that gave rise to the tenascin-c and tenascin-r genes.
on present evidence we cannot distinguish between these models, but it is interesting to note that the tenascin-w protein sequence is equivalently related  to both tenascin-c and tenascin-r. finally, in c. intestinalis, the single tenascin gene is adjacent to a notch gene just like all vertebrate tenascins which are located in close proximity to a notch gene present in the mhc paralogous regions, supporting the common ancestry.
discussion
six different names are currently being used to describe the tenascins of vertebrates: tenascin-c, tenascin-r, tenascin-x, tenascin-y, tenascin-w and tenascin-n. analysis of intron-exon splice sites, phylogenetic relationships and synteny shows that this nomenclature is inaccurate and needlessly complicated, and that there are in fact only four vertebrate tenascins.
the original designations of tenascin-c and tenascin-r are confirmed by our analyses, but avian tenascin-y shares close phylogenetic and genomic relationships with tenascin-x, and tenascin-n shares phylogenetic, syntenic and intron-exon junction homologies with tenascin-w. since the names tenascin-x and tenascin-w have clear precedence in the literature and have been adopted in the majority of published reports, we recommend that use of the terms tenascin-y  <cit>  and tenascin-n  <cit>  be discontinued.
here we report the first example of a tenascin from a non-vertebrate.
a predicted tenascin was found in the genomic sequence of the invertebrate chordate c. intestinalis and is corroborated as an expressed gene by the identification of matching ests, by cdna sequencing and by immunohistochemistry.
a similar gene product was also identified in the related species c. savignyi.
with only one copy of tenascin, c. intestinalis may represent an ideal model system for future studies of tenascin function, since analysis of its knockdown by morpholinos or its misexpression would not be complicated by the possible compensatory action of related tenascin gene products.
we have also identified a tenascin-type fred domain in o. dioica and expect to identify a full length tenascin when the genomic sequencing is completed and assembled.
thus, tenascins are most likely common to all urochordates.
there are no tenascins in caenorhabiditis elegans and drosophila melanogaster.
it is now recognized that these organisms have undergone extensive gene loss and that the cnidaria have a higher level of gene conservation in comparison to vertebrates  <cit> .
nevertheless, we could not identify cnidarian tenascins from the various databases .
searches of the draft genome sequence of the echinoderm strongylocentrotus purpuratus have also not revealed tenascin genes.
thus, to date, tenascins appear to be exclusive to the chordate lineage.
sequences encoding a tenascin-like fred domain are included in the branchiostoma floridae est database    <cit> , but it is unknown if this sequence includes adjacent fn type iii domains and egf-like repeats.
it will be of interest to know if one or more tenascin is encoded in the amphioxus genome once this sequencing project is completed.
of the four vertebrate tenascins, tenascin-x has the most distinctive fred sequence and overall domain organization.
we hypothesize that tenascin-x arose from the first tenascin gene duplication in vertebrates.
analysis of two pufferfish genomes revealed not four, but five, tenascins.
the fifth tenascin appears to be the result of a relatively recent duplication of the tenascin-c gene.
in keeping with the established protocol for naming very similar duplicated genes, we propose that these tenascin-c paralogs be referred to as tenascin-ca and tenascin-cb.
the two pufferfish studied here are closely related, having diverged from a common ancestor only 18– <dig> million year ago  <cit> .
nevertheless, the tenascin-cb genes of these close relatives encode different numbers of egf-like repeats and fn type iii domains.
this illustrates the potential for the numbers of these repeats and domains to change during evolution  and points to the potential problems that can stem from giving different names to tenascins on the basis of the numbers of their repeated domains.
it will be interesting to study the expression of these tenascin-c genes in tetraodon nigroviridis and takifugu rubripes: do their expression patterns overlap, or have they evolved distinctive regulatory elements?
if so, has their function diverged?
there is considerable evidence that the great species diversity of bony fishes is the consequence of an additional duplication of the whole fish genome followed by massive gene loss since the appearance of the ancestral tetrapod .
interestingly, in the family tetraodontidae the only tenascin to persist as a duplicated gene is tenascin-c. searches of the latest zebrafish genome assembly  identify only one tenascin-c on chromosome  <dig> .
it will be interesting to establish if the persistence of tenascin-c paralogs is specific to the pufferfish lineage.
the tenascin-x gene in pufferfish encodes previously undescribed, highly charged repeats.
we propose the name "gk repeats" to describe these unique sequences, since all but one of the  <dig> repeats in t. rubripes and all of the repeats in tetraodon nigroviridis begin with the amino acids glycine and lysine.
given the concentration of tenascin-x in the epimysium of birds and mammals, it is intriguing that these repeats combined with the rest of the duf <dig> domain share some sequence homology with a prokaryotic collagen-binding protein and the muscle-specific protein unc- <dig> in c. elegans.
the observation that x. tropicalis tenascin-x contains a region with sequence similar both to unc- <dig> as well as bird and human tenascin-x leads us to suggest that this region may have a role that is important to tenascin-x function, and its biological properties should be studied further.
a previous study in the zebrafish  <cit>  reported five fn type iii domains in the cdna sequence of tenascin-w. the analysis of the genomic sequence of d. rerio as well as rt-pcr of zebrafish cdna reveals a sixth fn type iii domain.
thus, the d. rerio tenascin-w gene encodes the same number of fn type iii domains as does the orthologous chicken gene, yet it encodes two more than does tetraodon nigroviridis.
this diversity again points out the potential hazards of giving proteins a new name based on the number of repeated domains – of the four tenascin subfamilies, only the tenascin-rs have the same number of fn type iii domains encoded in the genes of fish, birds and mammals.
in the case of mammalian tenascin-c and tenascin-x, distinct processes of conservative or concerted evolution have been described for their fn type iii domains  <cit> .
in the case of tenascin-w most of the diversity can be traced to different numbers of duplications in the third fn type iii domain.
this domain exists as a single copy in t. nigroviridis, two copies in takifugu rubripes, three copies in d. rerio and g. gallus,  <dig> copies in man, and  <dig> copies in many other mammals including dog , rat  and mouse.
what is it about this particular fn type iii domain that may be leading to its duplication?
one possibility is that this domain contains an integrin binding site, and different numbers of integrin binding sites may change the affinity of the intact molecule for a receptor, or may allow for tenascin-w to crosslink numerous receptors.
note that the ldvp/idap/idsp motif, which has been shown to recognize alpha4beta <dig> integrin in fibronectin and vcam  <cit> , is found in almost all of the duplicated third fn type iii domains analyzed here .
tenascin-w from x. tropicalis is different from other tenascin-ws in its number of egf-like repeats and the relatively recent duplication of its fourth, and not third, fn type iii domain.
interestingly, this also results in the duplication of two potentially active integrin binding motifs: an rgd in the fourth domain and a kgd in the fifth.
it is intriguing to note that species that lack an rgd motif in the third fn type iii domain of tenascin-c  have an rgd motif in their tenascin-w. since tenascin-c and tenascin-w are often co-expressed during development  <cit>  it is interesting to speculate that they may have overlapping functions related to their binding to an rgd-dependent integrin.
most tenascins studied to date are alternatively spliced, and only rarely are all of the potential fn type iii domains identified in the final protein .
this variability leads to different functional domains being exposed in different tissues  <cit> .
as more ests become available, it will be interesting to analyze the many potential splice variants of each of these tenascins, as they may reveal additional functional variability in the tenascin gene family.
CONCLUSIONS
tenascins are not known in protostomes or cnidaria.
we provide evidence that a single tenascin is encoded in the genome of the urochordate c. intestinalis.
this invertebrate chordate tenascin contains the motif rge in an exposed loop of its third fn type iii domain, which may correspond to an integrin-binding site conserved in some vertebrate tenascins.
sequence alignments, analysis of domains and exon/intron organization and phylogenetic analyses of tenascins from four classes of vertebrates reveal that in fish and in tetrapods there are four members of the tenascin gene family: tenascin-c, tenascin-r, tenascin-x and tenascin-w. we suggest that use of the names tenascin-y and tenascin-n be discontinued.
in pufferfish there are two tenascin-c paralogs but single copies of the other tenascins.
the human genome provides clear evidence that tenascin-c, tenascin-r and tenascin-x arose through the same ancestral genome duplications.
tenascin-w may have evolved as a result of a local duplication of the ancestor of tenascin-c and -r. the tenascin-x genes from the pufferfish tetraodon nigroviridis and takifugu rubripes encode different numbers of unique, highly charged tandem repeats of unknown function.
x. tropicalis tenascin-x shares features with both the smaller teleost tenascin-xs and the very large tenascin-xs found in mammals.
finally, much of the diversity seen in the size of tenascin-w can be accounted for by the multiple duplications of the exon encoding the third fn type iii domain in different species.

 tenascins are a family of extracellular matrix glycoproteins charcterized by an n-terminal globular domain and heptad repeats, which facilitate multimerization; one or more tenascin-type epidermal growth factor -like repeats; a series of fibronectin type iii domains, and a c-terminal fibrinogen-related domain. diversity within the family exists at many levels. each species of vertebrate examined to date has more than one tenascin gene, and the gene products themselves are frequently alternatively spliced. in addition, electron microscopy reveals purified tenascins with arms as well as trimers, dimers and monomers. tenascins are particularly abundant in the embryonic extracellular matrix, but some reappear in the adult during regeneration, inflammatory disease, tumorigenesis and wound healing. tenascins act through interactions with cell surface receptors as well as by binding to and blocking sites on other extracellular matrix molecules. there are names for tenascin gene products found in the current literature. tenascin-c, the first tenascin to be cloned and sequenced, has or egf-like repeats and up to fn type iii domains. the prominent expression of tenascin-c in tendons and embryonic extracellular matrix was used to create the name for the gene family, which comes from tenere and nasci. tenascin-r was the second member of the tenascin family to be identified. in birds and mammals, tenascin-r genes encode egf-like repeats and fn type iii domains. tenascin-x is the name given to a large mammalian tenascin first identified as "gene x" in the major histocompatibility complex class iii gene region in both mouse and human. this tenascin has egf-like repeats, and the tenascin-x genes of mouse and human encode and fn type iii domains, respectively. the series of fn type iii domains are interrupted in both mouse and human tenascin-x by a proline-rich stretch of about amino acids. tenascin-y is an avian tenascin described as being most similar to mammalian tenascin-x. the justification for a different name was because the similarity between the fred of tenascin-y and human tenascin-x was considerably lower than that between species orthologs of tenascin-c or tenascin-r. as in tenascin-x, the fn type iii domains of tenascin-y are interrupted by a region containing numerous serine-proline motifs. a fifth tenascin was eponymously named tenascin-w by weber et al.. tenascin-w from both zebrafish and mouse has egf-like repeats, but a danio rerio tenascin-w cdna encodes five fn type iii domains, whereas a murine cdna encodes the most recent tenascin to be described is tenascin-n, which like tenascin-w was named for its discoverer. only characterized in the mouse, tenascin-n is identical to murine tenascin-w except for three additional fn type iii domains. no tenascins have been identified in the caenorhabditis elegans genome or in arthropod genomes, and the only complete cdna sequences from poikilotherms come from d. rerio. this has limited the phylogenetic analysis of the origins of tenascins, the identification of evolutionarily conserved regions, domains and potential receptor recognition motifs, as well as the ability to clarify the relationships between the different members of the tenascin gene family. recently the genomes of a variety of organisms have been completely, or nearly completely, sequenced, facilitating the identification of tenascin genes in fish, amphibians, and invertebrate chordates. using searches based on conservation of amino acid sequences and domain architecture, we have identified in silico the putative tenascin gene products of the freshwater green pufferfish, tetraodon nigroviridis, the japanese tiger pufferfish, takifugu rubripes, the pipid frog, xenopus tropicalis, and the ascidian, ciona intestinalis. these studies show that the basic domain architecture of tenascins is highly conserved between an invertebrate chordate and vertebrates and that there are only four members of the tenascin family in vertebrates: tenascin-c, tenascin-r, tenascin-w and tenascin-x.  ciona intestinalis tenascin analysis of the genomic sequence of the urochordate c. intestinalis using the blat and snap programs reveals a single tenascin-like gene product. it was necessary to modify this predicted protein by visual inspection of the genomic sequence to remove some parts of predicted exons that did not show any homology to the known tenascins and by the identification of open reading frames complementing missing parts of three of the fibronectin type iii repeats. the sequence of the n-terminus was confirmed by predicting a potential signal peptide upstream of the egf repeats followed by rt-pcr using primers homologous to the region harboring the methionine n-terminal to the predicted signal peptide and a primer from the previously predicted region. the coding part of this tenascin gene lies between position 1585– of scaffold that is located on chromosome. the domain organization predicted by smart reveals an n-terminal signal sequence, and 1/ heptad repeats, tenascin-type egf-like repeats, fn type iii domains and a fred. the c-terminal portion of the predicted protein is confirmed by an est that includes the fred, as well as by the ests in gene cluster of the cdna resources of the ghost database. in addition, a highly-related gene product is encoded on c. savigyni contig. the corrected c. intestinalis protein sequence has aa, a predicted pi of and a molecular mass of kda. a stick diagram of this tenascin, the first reported from an invertebrate, is shown in figure 2b. note that the third fn type iii domain of c. intestinalis tenascin contains the tripeptide motif rge in a region that is likely to be exposed to receptor binding and that corresponds to the position of the integrin-binding rgd motifs of tenascin-c in many vertebrates. as others have shown that the rge motif can have similar properties to the rgd motif, this may represent an integrin-binding region in tenascin from c. intestinalis. to analyze the expression pattern of this novel tenascin we raised an antiserum against the second fn type iii domain expressed in e. coli. in whole mounts this antiserum recognized the thin tunic that envelopes the larva, the extracellular matrix at the base of the tail, and periodically arrayed structures found on either side of the nerve cord that may correspond to the dorsal portions of the primary muscles of the tail. this latter staining pattern is reminiscent of the immunostaining of the sclerotome in chick and mouse embryos with antibodies against tenascin-c. the tunics of the larvae incubated with preimmune serum were often labelled, but the matrix at the base of the tail and associated with the tail musculature was not. the genome sequencing of another urochordate, oikopleura dioica, has been completed. using the hidden markov model on the alignments of all o. dioica freds we could identify a putative tenascin gene in this distinct urochordate as well. unfortunately, we were not able to identify the entire o. dioica tenascin gene because the genome scaffolds have not been assembled yet. tetraodon and takifugu each have five tenascins using a blastp search of predicted proteins from all translated sequences with the chicken tenascin-c fred, four potential tenascin-like sequences were identified in the freshwater pufferfish tetraodon nigroviridis. these translated sequences were then entered into the blat field of the t. nigroviridis gene browser at genoscope, which returned four predicted tenascin-like proteins: 1) genoscope identifier gstent chrun_random:.20099581; 2) genoscope identifier gstent chrun_random:.1839543; 3) genoscope identifiers gstent chr15:. and gstenp chr15:.5850949; and 4) genoscope identifier gstent00028391001; chr15:. a fifth potential tenascin was identified using a blat search of the t. nigroviridis genome using the fred of a tenascin identified by others in the japanese pufferfish takifugu rubripes. the tetraodon nigroviridis tenascin sequences were then used to search the genome of the japanese pufferfish takifugu rubripes at the fugu genome browser gateway at ucsc genome bioinformatics and the ncbi fugu genome project. these searches also revealed five putative tenascin genes: 1) genescan predicted gene scaffold_ and sinfrut00000156379; 2) genescan predicted gene scaffold_ and sinfrut00000139096; 3) genescan predicted gene scaffold_ and sinfrup00000066378; 4) genescan predicted gene scaffold_ and sinfrup and 5) genescan predicted gene scaffold_ and sinfrup. *the accession numbers xenopus tenascins from the x. tropicalis genome browser gateway the ncbi frog sequence database are listed separately in the text. pufferfish have two tenascin-cs two of the predicted tenascin sequences found in the tetraodon nigroviridis genome showed the most similarity to zebrafish, chicken, and the numerous mammalian tenascin-cs following blastp analyses of their freds and first and last fn type iii domains. both of these tenascins were predicted by smart and visual inspection to include an n-terminal linker, a series of heptad repeats, egf-like repeats and a c-terminal fred. one of the two sequences contains fn type iii domains and the other contains fn type iii domains. the amino acid sequences of the freds of the two tenascins share 80% identity and 94% similarity. bayesian inference of the phylogenetic trees predicts that these proteins are more closely related to each other than to any other vertebrate tenascin. because of their sequence similarity to each other and to other tenascin-cs, overall domain organization, and predicted evolutionary proximity, we will refer to these paralogs as tenascin-ca and tenascin-cb. like tenascin-c in gallus gallus and man, tenascin-cb contains an rgd integrin-binding motif in its third fn type iii domain in a region predicted to be exposed to receptor binding. in tenascin-ca this region contains the potentially reactive motif kgd. similarly duplicated tenascin-c genes were identified in the takifugu rubripes genome. smart reveals that one predicted protein has heptad repeats, tenascin-type egf-like repeats, fn type iii domains and a c-terminal fred. it was also necessary to modify this predicted protein by identifying open reading frames in the genomic sequence that corresponded to missing exons that completed several fn type iii domains. the domain organization of the corrected tenascin is identical to that of tetraodon nigroviridis tenascin-ca. the freds of the two pufferfish tenascin-cas are 95% identical and 99% similar. the second takifugu rubripes tenascin-c is predicted by smart and direct examination to have heptad repeats, egf-like repeats, fn type iii domains and a c-terminal fred. like tetraodon nigroviridis tenascin-cb, it has an rgd motif in the third fn type iii domain. the amino acid sequences of the tenascin-cb freds from the two species of pufferfish are 92% identical and 98% similar. tenascin-r in tetraodon and takifugu there are two predicted protein sequences lying side-by-side on chromosome of t. nigroviridis that, when considered as a single gene product, contain an n-terminal linker, heptad repeats, egf-like repeats, fn type iii domains and a c-terminal fred. phylogenetic analysis of the fred and terminal fn type iii domain show this potential tenascin to be most similar to amniote and zebrafish tenascin-r. like tenascin-r in d. rerio it is adjacent to, and in the opposite orientation from, a tenascin-w gene. the t. nigroviridis tenascin-r sequence, however, is not complete; the genomic sequence found between the regions encoding the egf-like repeats and fn type iii domains contains approximately undetermined nucleotides. in contrast, the takifugu rubripes tenascin-r, found by blastp of the ncbi protein database, is missing only the signal sequence at the n-terminus. the remaining predicted protein includes heptad repeats, egf-like repeats, fn type iii domains and a c-terminal fred. alignment of the two pufferfish tenascin-r sequences confirms that the fourth egf-like repeat and first two fn type iii domains of tetraodon nigroviridis are missing from the predicted protein. the domain architecture of takifugu rubripes tenascin-r is identical to that found in the predicted tenascin-r proteins encoded in genomes of d. rerio, g. gallus, mouse and man. pufferfish tenascin-r does not contain an rgd motif, but the third fn type iii domains contain an idg motif, which is a potential recognition site for the alpha4/alpha family of integrins. this motif is also found in the same location on d. rerio, g. gallus, m. musculus and human tenascin-r. unique repeats in pufferfish tenascin-x in addition to the blastp searches with the chicken fred sequence, a blat search of the t. nigroviridis genome was carried out using the fred sequence of a partial putative tenascin-x identified by others in takifugu rubripes. this revealed a novel tenascin with numerous features not yet described in the gene family. note that it was necessary to identify an exon in the genomic sequence to derive the final amino acid sequence illustrated in figure 4a. the putative tetraodon nigroviridis tenascin-x is much smaller than mammalian tenascin-x: it encodes at most amino acids and is predicted to have a molecular mass of kda. the coils program predicts that it has heptad repeats near the n-terminus, and smart reveals a single tenascin-type egf-like sequence that, as in tenascin-y, is followed by what may be considered a partial egf-like repeat. separating the egf-like repeat from one partial and three complete fn type iii domains is a stretch of amino acids, many of which are charged or polar. the first amino acids in this region contains numerous charged residues, but a blastp search fails to reveal any similarities between this region and any other sequence. the next residues make up complete and one partial copies of a previously undescribed simple tandem repeat of amino acids that mostly contains polar or charged residues. blastp searches with these repeats fail to reveal significant homologies with proteins from vertebrates, but the region is 43% similar to a collagen-binding, surface protein from bacillus cereus. the final residues of this region are also highly charged and, when examined by blastp on their own, fail to show homologies with other known proteins. however, when the entire predicted open reading frame of t. nigroviridis tenascin-x is used in a blastp run, the 16-residue repeats and the adjacent 301-residue region are recognized as a duf domain. the function of the duf domain is unknown, but it is found in c. elegans unc- a large multidomain protein required for myofibril assembly. the unusual repeat and domain structure of t. nigroviridis tenascin-x is also seen in takifugu rubripes tenascin-x. this was determined by a blat search of the t. rubripes genome with the fred of tetraodon nigroviridis tenascin-x. this search revealed a very large predicted protein, which, upon further examination, was found to be composed of three closely clustered but distinctive gene products. the middle gene encodes a predicted tenascin with one egf-like repeat, charged repeats similar to those found in t. nigroviridis tenascin-x interrupted by two partial charged repeats, a charged domain that is 69% identical to amino acids 271– in t. nigroviridis tenascin-x, one partial and three complete fn type iii domains, and a c-terminal fred. phylogenetic analysis shows that the freds from the putative pufferfish tenascin-xs are most similar to the freds of chicken tenascin-y and mammalian tenascin-x. however, the most striking evidence that the unusual tenascin-x of t. nigroviridis is indeed a member of this particular tenascin subfamily is its genomic location: it is found on chromosome flanked by the genes encoding cytochrome p 21-hydroxylase and c complement. in mammals, the tenascin-x gene overlaps with the cytochrome p 21-hydroxylase gene, which is encoded on the opposite strand of dna, and lies adjacent to one of two c complement genes. the retinoid x receptor beta gene, which lies next to the c gene in t. nigroviridis, is also an mhc complex gene in mammals found approximately mb from the human tenascin-x gene on chromosome thus, both by sequence homology and by synteny, the small gene encoding a single tenascin-type egf-like sequence and only three complete fn type iii domains corresponds to the t. nigroviridis ortholog of mammalian tenascin-x. tenascin-w: diversity through domain duplication a putative gene product with a repeat and domain structure similar to zebrafish tenascin-w was identified in t. nigroviridis. this tenascin gene encodes an n-terminal linker, heptad repeats, egf-like repeats, four fn type iii domains, and a c-terminal fred. blastp of the first fn type iii domain, the fourth fn type iii domain, and the fred all reveal that this putative gene product is most similar to tenascin-w from zebrafish and mouse. a similar tenascin-w was found in the genome of takifugu rubripes, but this tenascin-w has five fn type iii domains instead of four. there is an rgd motif in the fifth fn type iii domain of t. rubripes tenascin-w, but this motif is not found in tenascin-w from tetraodon nigroviridis. the predicted tenascin-w orthologs from t. nigroviridis, takifugu rubripes, d. rerio, g. gallus, m. musculus and human all have an n-terminal linker, heptad repeats, egf-like repeats and a c-terminal fred. they differ, however, in the numbers of fn type iii domains encoded in their respective tenascin-w genes. the smallest number of domains is seen in tetraodon nigroviridis and takifugu rubripes; d. rerio and chicken have mouse has and man has fn type iii domains. despite the differences in numbers of fn type iii domains, each of the tenascin-w genes listed above is found in each genome immediately adjacent to the tenascin-r gene and encoded in the opposite orientation. for example, in tetraodon nigroviridis the two tenascin genes are separated by only kb on chromosome and in mouse the two tenascin genes are only kb away from each other on chromosome in d. rerio, the two genes are encoded on chromosome. moreover, the different tenascin-w genes share nearly identical intron/exon organization in each species examined. in d. rerio, g. gallus, m. musculus and man the first tenascin-w fn type iii domain is encoded on a single exon, the second fn type iii domain is encoded on two exons, and the final fn type iii domain, adjacent to the fred, is encoded on two exons. the intron/exon junction sites are the same in each of these species. as in other tenascins, the heptad linkers and egf-like repeats are encoded on a single exon, and the fred is encoded by five exons. in the pufferfish, tenascin-w is identically encoded except for the first fn type iii domain, which is formed from two exons. the variation in the numbers of fn type iii domains between the various tenascin-w predicted proteins seems to be the result of repeated duplications of the third fn type iii domain. there is only one of these domains in t. nigroviridis, and it is encoded by a single exon. in takifugu rubripes, sequence alignment and tree construction using hidden markov models analysis reveals that the third fn type iii domain has recently duplicated, resulting in a total of five fn type iii domains. in d. rerio and g. gallus this domain has duplicated twice, resulting in the total fn type iii domains. evidence of this duplication is provided by the very high sequence similarities between these particular domains, as well as from construction of a phylogenetic tree based on their sequences. this tree also reveals that the duplications most likely took place after the evolutionary separation of the species examined, since the descendents of the third fn type iii domain are typically most similar within a species than between species. note that the d. rerio tenascin-w cdna sequence reported by weber et al. only contained five fn type iii repeats. the extra repeat shown here was found in the genomic sequence where, like all of the duplicated repeats, it is predicted to be encoded from its own exon. the presence of this novel fn type iii domain in tenascin-w transcripts was confirmed by rt-pcr using mrna from an adult zebrafish as a source of cdna template and primers corresponding to the end of the fourth fn type iii domain and the beginning of the sixth fn type iii domain. in the mouse, the fn type iii domains are the result of an eight-fold replication of the third domain, and in man the third fn type iii domain is replicated five times. sequence similarities and phylogenetic analysis also reveal the possible order in which these duplications occurred. as one might expect, the species with the most third fn type iii domains, the mouse, has some repeats that are very similar to each other: domains 3d and 3f have identical amino acid sequences, as previously noted by neidhardt et al.. xenopus tropicalis tenascins four tenascin genes were identified in the genome of the amphibian xenopus tropicalis by blat searches of the x. tropicalis genome browser gateway and by blastp searches of the ncbi frog sequence database with the fred sequences from chicken and pufferfish tenascins. the tenascin-c predicted from the x. tropicalis genome, identified by the similarity of its fred sequence with that of fish and amniote tenascin-cs, has heptad repeats near its n-terminus, egf-like repeats, and fn type iii domains. it does not have an rgd or rgd-like motif in its fn type iii domains. only a partial x. tropicalis tenascin-r sequence is found in the database; it encodes a single fn type iii domain and a fred at the terminus of scaffold however, a complete tenascin-x was found by combining two predicted proteins. when combined the single predicted protein contains heptad repeats, complete and two partial egf-like repeats, fn type iii domains and a c-terminal fred. between the second and third fn type iii domains is a 649-amino acid region that is not recognized as a known domain by smart. near the center of this region is a 37-amino acid stretch that shares 70% identity and 89% similarity to part of the serine-proline-rich domain of tenascin-y and 59% identity and 72% similarity to part of the proline-rich domain of human tenascin-x. the entire region is 38% similar to a portion of unc- but the smart program does not predict the presence of a duf domain. the fourth tenascin found in the x. tropicalis genome is tenascin-w. it was identified by combining two predicted proteins using the c-terminal sequence of the former, since this was the most similar to tenascin freds following alignment. thus assembled, the x. tropicalis tenascin-w gene encodes a signal sequence, heptad repeats, egf-like repeats, five fn type iii domains and a c-terminal fred. the fourth fn type iii domain contains a potentially active rgd motif and the fifth contains a kgd motif also predicted to be in an exposed loop. unlike the other tenascin-ws described here, x. tropicalis tenascin-w has egf-like repeats instead of, and the fourth fn type iii domain has duplicated itself once. analysis of phylogeny and synteny a summary of the repeat and domain organizations of the novel predicted tenascins and the previously described amniote tenascins is shown in figure phylogenetic reconstruction using bayesian inference based on the fred of the tenascins of pufferfish, x. tropicalis, g. gallus, mouse and man reveals four members of the vertebrate tenascin gene family: tenascin-c, tenascin-r, tenascin-w and tenascin-x. of these, tenascin-x represents the most distinctive sequence. a nearly identical tree based on the fred sequences was constructed by maximal likelihood phylogeny. as reported by chiquet-ehrismann et al., erickson, and hughes, the freds of tenascin-c and tenascin-r share the most sequence similarity at the protein level, which provides one indication that they are derived from the same relatively recent ancestral duplication event. this view is strongly supported by a consideration of the organization of the human genome. the identification of regions of the human genome on different chromosomes that contain many pairs of related genes has provided strong support for the model that the genomes of modern vertebrates evolved from at least one whole genome duplication in early chordate evolution. the largest region of paralogy in the human genome is that between chromosome 1q, which includes the tenascin-r locus at 1q and 9q, which contains the tenascin-c locus at 9q. the loci of the tenascin-c and tenascin-r genes are also known to be part of the mhc loci that exist as paralogous regions on chromosomes 1q, 6p, 9q and 19p. thus, although tenascin-x is the most divergent family member in terms of protein sequence, its gene locus on chromosome 6q is paralogous with that of the tenascin-c and -r genes. the paralogy of the mhc region is well-conserved in mice and, according to comparative mapping information, human chromosome corresponds to chicken chromosome. interestingly, the chicken tenascin-y gene is located on chromosome and is in immediate synteny with the complement c tap tap and mhc ii-like genes that represent orthologs of the genes present in the human mhciii locus next to the human tenascin-x gene. as noted above, the gene neighbors of t. nigroviridis tenascin-x also correspond to mhc genes. this conserved chromosomal location between chicken tenascin-y and its neighboring genes and the human, mouse and t. nigriviridis tenascin-x genes provides the most convincing argument that, despite distinctions in the polypeptide sequences, these genes all represent tenascin orthologs. although a fourth paralogous mhc gene cluster is encoded on human chromosome 19p13-1-, no tenascin is encoded in this region, suggesting that this paralog was lost after the initial large-scale duplication events. the locus of tenascin-w adjacent to tenascin-r on chromosome is suggestive of a distinct evolutionary origin, for example by local tandem duplication of an ancestral tenascin gene. because the chromosome and mhc regions are so well-related as to indicate their origin from the most recent large-scale duplication, the positioning of tenascin-w adjacent to tenascin-r suggests either that: 1) this positioning was ancestral to the duplication event and a tenascin gene has been lost or transposed away from adjacent the tenascin-c gene; or 2) the tenascin-w gene arose by a tandem duplication of tenascin-r after the original duplication event and with a relatively rapid rate of change to the polypeptide sequence. it can also be hypothesized that the tenascin-w gene was transposed from the original locus on chromosome into its current location soon after the duplication that gave rise to the tenascin-c and tenascin-r genes. on present evidence we cannot distinguish between these models, but it is interesting to note that the tenascin-w protein sequence is equivalently related to both tenascin-c and tenascin-r. finally, in c. intestinalis, the single tenascin gene is adjacent to a notch gene just like all vertebrate tenascins which are located in close proximity to a notch gene present in the mhc paralogous regions, supporting the common ancestry. discussion six different names are currently being used to describe the tenascins of vertebrates: tenascin-c, tenascin-r, tenascin-x, tenascin-y, tenascin-w and tenascin-n. analysis of intron-exon splice sites, phylogenetic relationships and synteny shows that this nomenclature is inaccurate and needlessly complicated, and that there are in fact only four vertebrate tenascins. the original designations of tenascin-c and tenascin-r are confirmed by our analyses, but avian tenascin-y shares close phylogenetic and genomic relationships with tenascin-x, and tenascin-n shares phylogenetic, syntenic and intron-exon junction homologies with tenascin-w. since the names tenascin-x and tenascin-w have clear precedence in the literature and have been adopted in the majority of published reports, we recommend that use of the terms tenascin-y and tenascin-n be discontinued. here we report the first example of a tenascin from a non-vertebrate. a predicted tenascin was found in the genomic sequence of the invertebrate chordate c. intestinalis and is corroborated as an expressed gene by the identification of matching ests, by cdna sequencing and by immunohistochemistry. a similar gene product was also identified in the related species c. savignyi. with only one copy of tenascin, c. intestinalis may represent an ideal model system for future studies of tenascin function, since analysis of its knockdown by morpholinos or its misexpression would not be complicated by the possible compensatory action of related tenascin gene products. we have also identified a tenascin-type fred domain in o. dioica and expect to identify a full length tenascin when the genomic sequencing is completed and assembled. thus, tenascins are most likely common to all urochordates. there are no tenascins in caenorhabiditis elegans and drosophila melanogaster. it is now recognized that these organisms have undergone extensive gene loss and that the cnidaria have a higher level of gene conservation in comparison to vertebrates. nevertheless, we could not identify cnidarian tenascins from the various databases. searches of the draft genome sequence of the echinoderm strongylocentrotus purpuratus have also not revealed tenascin genes. thus, to date, tenascins appear to be exclusive to the chordate lineage. sequences encoding a tenascin-like fred domain are included in the branchiostoma floridae est database, but it is unknown if this sequence includes adjacent fn type iii domains and egf-like repeats. it will be of interest to know if one or more tenascin is encoded in the amphioxus genome once this sequencing project is completed. of the four vertebrate tenascins, tenascin-x has the most distinctive fred sequence and overall domain organization. we hypothesize that tenascin-x arose from the first tenascin gene duplication in vertebrates. analysis of two pufferfish genomes revealed not four, but five, tenascins. the fifth tenascin appears to be the result of a relatively recent duplication of the tenascin-c gene. in keeping with the established protocol for naming very similar duplicated genes, we propose that these tenascin-c paralogs be referred to as tenascin-ca and tenascin-cb. the two pufferfish studied here are closely related, having diverged from a common ancestor only 18– million year ago. nevertheless, the tenascin-cb genes of these close relatives encode different numbers of egf-like repeats and fn type iii domains. this illustrates the potential for the numbers of these repeats and domains to change during evolution and points to the potential problems that can stem from giving different names to tenascins on the basis of the numbers of their repeated domains. it will be interesting to study the expression of these tenascin-c genes in tetraodon nigroviridis and takifugu rubripes: do their expression patterns overlap, or have they evolved distinctive regulatory elements? if so, has their function diverged? there is considerable evidence that the great species diversity of bony fishes is the consequence of an additional duplication of the whole fish genome followed by massive gene loss since the appearance of the ancestral tetrapod. interestingly, in the family tetraodontidae the only tenascin to persist as a duplicated gene is tenascin-c. searches of the latest zebrafish genome assembly identify only one tenascin-c on chromosome. it will be interesting to establish if the persistence of tenascin-c paralogs is specific to the pufferfish lineage. the tenascin-x gene in pufferfish encodes previously undescribed, highly charged repeats. we propose the name "gk repeats" to describe these unique sequences, since all but one of the repeats in t. rubripes and all of the repeats in tetraodon nigroviridis begin with the amino acids glycine and lysine. given the concentration of tenascin-x in the epimysium of birds and mammals, it is intriguing that these repeats combined with the rest of the duf domain share some sequence homology with a prokaryotic collagen-binding protein and the muscle-specific protein unc- in c. elegans. the observation that x. tropicalis tenascin-x contains a region with sequence similar both to unc- as well as bird and human tenascin-x leads us to suggest that this region may have a role that is important to tenascin-x function, and its biological properties should be studied further. a previous study in the zebrafish reported five fn type iii domains in the cdna sequence of tenascin-w. the analysis of the genomic sequence of d. rerio as well as rt-pcr of zebrafish cdna reveals a sixth fn type iii domain. thus, the d. rerio tenascin-w gene encodes the same number of fn type iii domains as does the orthologous chicken gene, yet it encodes two more than does tetraodon nigroviridis. this diversity again points out the potential hazards of giving proteins a new name based on the number of repeated domains – of the four tenascin subfamilies, only the tenascin-rs have the same number of fn type iii domains encoded in the genes of fish, birds and mammals. in the case of mammalian tenascin-c and tenascin-x, distinct processes of conservative or concerted evolution have been described for their fn type iii domains. in the case of tenascin-w most of the diversity can be traced to different numbers of duplications in the third fn type iii domain. this domain exists as a single copy in t. nigroviridis, two copies in takifugu rubripes, three copies in d. rerio and g. gallus, copies in man, and copies in many other mammals including dog, rat and mouse. what is it about this particular fn type iii domain that may be leading to its duplication? one possibility is that this domain contains an integrin binding site, and different numbers of integrin binding sites may change the affinity of the intact molecule for a receptor, or may allow for tenascin-w to crosslink numerous receptors. note that the ldvp/idap/idsp motif, which has been shown to recognize alpha4beta integrin in fibronectin and vcam, is found in almost all of the duplicated third fn type iii domains analyzed here. tenascin-w from x. tropicalis is different from other tenascin-ws in its number of egf-like repeats and the relatively recent duplication of its fourth, and not third, fn type iii domain. interestingly, this also results in the duplication of two potentially active integrin binding motifs: an rgd in the fourth domain and a kgd in the fifth. it is intriguing to note that species that lack an rgd motif in the third fn type iii domain of tenascin-c have an rgd motif in their tenascin-w. since tenascin-c and tenascin-w are often co-expressed during development it is interesting to speculate that they may have overlapping functions related to their binding to an rgd-dependent integrin. most tenascins studied to date are alternatively spliced, and only rarely are all of the potential fn type iii domains identified in the final protein. this variability leads to different functional domains being exposed in different tissues. as more ests become available, it will be interesting to analyze the many potential splice variants of each of these tenascins, as they may reveal additional functional variability in the tenascin gene family.  tenascins are not known in protostomes or cnidaria. we provide evidence that a single tenascin is encoded in the genome of the urochordate c. intestinalis. this invertebrate chordate tenascin contains the motif rge in an exposed loop of its third fn type iii domain, which may correspond to an integrin-binding site conserved in some vertebrate tenascins. sequence alignments, analysis of domains and exon/intron organization and phylogenetic analyses of tenascins from four classes of vertebrates reveal that in fish and in tetrapods there are four members of the tenascin gene family: tenascin-c, tenascin-r, tenascin-x and tenascin-w. we suggest that use of the names tenascin-y and tenascin-n be discontinued. in pufferfish there are two tenascin-c paralogs but single copies of the other tenascins. the human genome provides clear evidence that tenascin-c, tenascin-r and tenascin-x arose through the same ancestral genome duplications. tenascin-w may have evolved as a result of a local duplication of the ancestor of tenascin-c and -r. the tenascin-x genes from the pufferfish tetraodon nigroviridis and takifugu rubripes encode different numbers of unique, highly charged tandem repeats of unknown function. x. tropicalis tenascin-x shares features with both the smaller teleost tenascin-xs and the very large tenascin-xs found in mammals. finally, much of the diversity seen in the size of tenascin-w can be accounted for by the multiple duplications of the exon encoding the third fn type iii domain in different species. 
a phylogenetic tree based on the predicted amino acid sequences of the fibrinogen-related domains demonstrates that tenascin-c and tenascin-r are the most closely related vertebrate tenascins, with the most conserved repeat and domain organization. both pufferfish genomes encode five tenascin genes: two tenascin-c paralogs, a tenascin-r with domain organization identical to mammalian and avian tenascin-r, a small tenascin-x with previously undescribed gk repeats, and a tenascin-w. four tenascin genes corresponding to tenascin-c, tenascin-r, tenascin-x and tenascin-w were also identified in the x. tropicalis genome. in order to learn more about their origins and relationships to each other, as well as to clarify the nomenclature used to describe them, the tenascin genes of the urochordate ciona intestinalis, the pufferfish tetraodon nigroviridis and takifugu rubripes and the frog xenopus tropicalis were identified and their gene organization and predicted protein products compared with the previously characterized tenascins of amniotes. tenascins are a family of glycoproteins found primarily in the extracellular matrix of embryos where they help to regulate cell proliferation, adhesion and migration. a single tenascin gene was identified in the genome of c. intestinalis that encodes a polypeptide with domain features common to all vertebrate tenascins. the presence of a tenascin gene in urochordates but not other invertebrate phyla suggests that tenascins may be specific to chordates.
 tenascins are a family of glycoproteins found primarily in the extracellular matrix of embryos where they help to regulate cell proliferation, adhesion and migration. in order to learn more about their origins and relationships to each other, as well as to clarify the nomenclature used to describe them, the tenascin genes of the urochordate ciona intestinalis, the pufferfish tetraodon nigroviridis and takifugu rubripes and the frog xenopus tropicalis were identified and their gene organization and predicted protein products compared with the previously characterized tenascins of amniotes.  a single tenascin gene was identified in the genome of c. intestinalis that encodes a polypeptide with domain features common to all vertebrate tenascins. both pufferfish genomes encode five tenascin genes: two tenascin-c paralogs, a tenascin-r with domain organization identical to mammalian and avian tenascin-r, a small tenascin-x with previously undescribed gk repeats, and a tenascin-w. four tenascin genes corresponding to tenascin-c, tenascin-r, tenascin-x and tenascin-w were also identified in the x. tropicalis genome. multiple sequence alignment reveals that differences in the size of tenascin-w from various vertebrate classes can be explained by duplications of specific fibronectin type iii domains. the duplicated domains are encoded on single exons and contain putative integrin-binding motifs. a phylogenetic tree based on the predicted amino acid sequences of the fibrinogen-related domains demonstrates that tenascin-c and tenascin-r are the most closely related vertebrate tenascins, with the most conserved repeat and domain organization. taking all lines of evidence together, the data show that the tenascins referred to as tenascin-y and tenascin-n are actually members of the tenascin-x and tenascin-w gene families, respectively.  the presence of a tenascin gene in urochordates but not other invertebrate phyla suggests that tenascins may be specific to chordates. later genomic duplication events led to the appearance of four family members in vertebrates: tenascin-c, tenascin-r, tenascin-w and tenascin-x. 