Abstract
BackgroundSmyd1, the founding member of the Smyd family including Smyd-1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, is a SET and MYND domain containing protein that plays a key role in myofibril assembly in skeletal and cardiac muscles. Bioinformatic analysis revealed that zebrafish genome contains two highly related smyd1 genes, smyd1a and smyd1b. Although Smyd1b function is well characterized in skeletal and cardiac muscles, the function of Smyd1a is, however, unknown.Methodology/Principal FindingsTo investigate the function of Smyd1a in muscle development, we isolated smyd1a from zebrafish, and characterized its expression and function during muscle development via gene knockdown and transgenic expression approaches. The results showed that smyd1a was strongly expressed in skeletal muscles of zebrafish embryos. Functional analysis revealed that knockdown of smyd1a alone had no significant effect on myofibril assembly in zebrafish skeletal muscles. However, knockdown of smyd1a and smyd1b together resulted in a complete disruption of myofibril organization in skeletal muscles, a phenotype stronger than knockdown of smyd1a or smyd1b alone. Moreover, ectopic expression of zebrafish smyd1a or mouse Smyd1 transgene could rescue the myofibril defects from the smyd1b knockdown in zebrafish embryos.Conclusion/SignificanceCollectively, these data indicate that Smyd1a and Smyd1b share similar biological activity in myofibril assembly in zebrafish embryos. However, Smyd1b appears to play a major role in this process.
Highlights
Members of the Smyd family are newly identified proteins that have been implicated in diverse biological functions in embryonic development and cancer [1]
Characterization of Smyd1a in Zebrafish Sequence analysis revealed that zebrafish genome contains two highly related smyd1 genes with similar gene structures [17]. smyd1a and smyd1b are believed to be generated by gene duplication
Sequence alignment revealed that zebrafish Smyd1a contains the highly conserved SET and MYND domains involved in protein methylation and proteinprotein interactions, respectively (Figure S1)
Summary
Members of the Smyd family are newly identified proteins that have been implicated in diverse biological functions in embryonic development and cancer [1]. Smyd is expressed in skeletal and cardiac muscles and plays a key role in muscle development and embryonic survival in mice and zebrafish [4,5,6]. Knockdown or mutation of smyd1b gene in zebrafish led to disruption of myofibril organization in skeletal and cardiac muscles in zebrafish embryos [5,6]. The founding member of the Smyd family including Smyd-1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, is a SET and MYND domain containing protein that plays a key role in myofibril assembly in skeletal and cardiac muscles. Smyd1b function is well characterized in skeletal and cardiac muscles, the function of Smyd1a is, unknown
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