Wnt and Frizzled Genes in Echinoderms

Abstract

Wnt and frizzled genes of 17 echinoderm species were studied by molecular and bioinformatics methods. As a result, it has been found that echinoderms have 11–13 wnt genes and four frizzled genes. The phylum Echinodermata is generally characterized by the loss of some of the Wnt family genes. In particular, members of all classes, except for Asteroidea, lack the wnt11 gene, while the studied Echinoidea lost also the wnt2 gene. Wnt genes are conservative, but the amino acid sequences of the corresponding proteins have only 49–73% similarity to homological proteins in different echinoderm classes. The Frizzled proteins show a higher degree of similarity, 63–76%. A phylogenetic analysis of the Wnt and Frizzled gene families has also been carried out in the present study.