Duplication and differentiation of common carp (Cyprinus carpio) myoglobin genes revealed by BAC analysis

• Common carp has two myoglobin genes arisen from whole genome duplication.
• The duplicated myoglobin genes show differential expression.
• Differential expression accompanies sequence divergence in the promoters.

Two distinct myoglobin (mb) transcripts have been reported in common carp, Cyprinus carpio, which is a hypoxia-tolerant fish living in habitats with greatly fluctuant dissolved oxygen levels. Recombinant protein analysis has shown functional specialization of the two mb transcripts. In this work, analysis for mb-containing bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) clones indicated different genome loci for common carp myoglobin-1 (mb-1) and myoglobin-2 (mb-2) genes. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) revealed that mb-1 and mb-2 are located on separate chromosomes. In both of the mb-1 and mb-2 containing BAC clones, gene synteny was well conserved with the homologous region on zebrafish chromosome 1, supporting that the common carp specific mb-2 gene originated from the recent whole genome duplication event in cyprinid lineage. Transcription factor binding sites search indicated that both common carp mb genes lacked specificity Protein 1 (Sp1) and myocyte enhancer factor-2 (MEF2) binding sites, which mediated muscle-specific and calcium-dependent expression in the well-studied mb promoters. Potential hypoxia response elements (HREs) were predicted in the regulatory region of common carp mb genes. These characteristics of common carp mb gene regulatory region well interpreted the hypoxia-inducible, non-muscle expression pattern of mb-1. In the case of mb-2, a 10 bp insertion to the binding site of upstream stimulatory factor (USF), which was a co-factor of hypoxia inducible factor (HIF), might cause the non-response to hypoxia treatment of mb-2. The case of common carp mb gene duplication and subsequent differentiation in expression pattern and protein function provided an example for adaptive evolution toward aquatic hypoxia tolerance.