Members of the wnt gene family encode secreted glycoproteins that mediate critical intercellular communications in metazoans. Large‐scale genome and transcriptome analyses have shown that this family is composed of 13 distinct subfamilies. These analyses have further established that the number of wnt genes per subfamily varies significantly between metazoan phyla, highlighting that gene duplication and gene loss events have shaped the complements of wnt genes during evolution. In sea urchins, for example, previous work reported the absence of representatives of both the WNT2 and WNT11 subfamilies in two different species, Paracentrotus lividus and Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. Recently, however, we identified a gene encoding a WNT2 ortholog in P. lividus and, based on that finding, we also reanalyzed the genome of S. purpuratus. Yet, we found no evidence of a bona fide wnt2 gene in S. purpuratus. Furthermore, we established that the P. lividus wnt2 gene is selectively expressed in vegetal tissues during embryogenesis, in a pattern that is similar, although not identical, to that of other P. lividus wnt genes. Taken together, this study amends previous work on the P. lividus wnt complement and reveals an unexpected variation in the number of wnt genes between closely related sea urchin species.

中文翻译：

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海胆Paracentrotus lividus中的wnt2直系同源物。

该成员的Wnt介导后生动物的关键细胞间通讯基因家族编码分泌糖蛋白。大规模的基因组和转录组分析表明，该家族由13个不同的亚家族组成。这些分析进一步证实，后生动物门之间每个亚科的wnt基因数量明显不同，这突出表明基因复制和基因丢失事件已在进化过程中塑造了wnt基因的互补序列。例如，在海胆中，以前的工作报告说在两种不同的物种（Paracentrotus lividus和Strongylocentrotus purpuratusus）中没有WNT2和WNT11亚科的代表。然而，最近，我们在青紫假单胞菌中鉴定了一个编码WNT2直系同源基因的基因，基于这一发现，我们还重新分析了紫癜链球菌的基因组。然而，我们没有发现任何一个证据善意WNT2基因S.紫石。此外，我们建立了在胚胎发生过程中在植物组织中选择性地表达lividus wnt2基因的方式与其他lividus wnt基因相似但不相同。两者合计，这项研究修正了以前对青紫假单胞菌wnt补体的研究，并揭示了紧密相关的海胆物种之间的wnt基因数量出现了意想不到的变化。