Conservation and
Evolution of the “Core Apoptotic Engine”：Lesson from the Genome Comparison of Drosophila
XIE Tao, DING Da-Fu*
( Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry, the Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Shanghai 200031, China )
Abstract Genome
comparison is the main approach to deduce regulatory network from genome
sequence. Apoptotic network is one kind of typical regulatory networks. EGL1,
CED3, CED4, CED9 and their homologous proteins play essential roles in
apoptosis of C.elegans and mammals, and were regarded as the
components of the“core apoptotic engine”. But in fruit fly, Drosophila
melanogaster, this network is incomplete. A series of bioinformatic
analyses found the lost chains of“core apoptotic engine”by discovering two
homologues of BCL2/CED9 and one of EGL1 in fruit fly genome sequences. These
findings proved that the“core apoptotic engine”is indeed widely conserved among
multicellular organisms and the evolutionary complexity of this network of Drosophila
is between that of C.elegans and mammals.
Key words genome comparison；core apoptotic engine；Drosophila melanogaster
*Corresponding author：Tel,86-21-64374430-254；Fax,86-21-64338357；
e-mail,[email protected]