Fig. 1

Germ Plasm Formation in Early Bucky Ball Oocytes and Evolutionary Conservation of the Buc Protein

(A–F) Fluorescent whole-mount in situ hybridization of early Ib oocytes showing mRNAs (red) of cyclinB (A and D), nanos (B and E), and vg1RBP (C and F) in wild-type (A–C) and buc ^p106re mutant oocytes (D–F). Note that the localization of nanos and vg1RBP mRNAs in the Balbiani body is lost in mutants (E and F), but the cyclinB and vg1RBP mRNAs still show polarized localization (D and F). Animal pole to the top. Scale bar represents 25 μm. All mutant images are of the buc^p106re allele.

(G) Unrooted star diagram displaying the phylogenetic conservation of Bucky ball proteins among vertebrates. The scale indicates the number of substitutions per amino acid residue.

(H) Alignment of Buc N terminus in 12 vertebrate species (zebrafish amino acids 23–136). The sequence homology was calculated with Kalign [45], which revealed a conserved peptide (zebrafish amino acids 23–38, red box).

(I) Alignment of conserved peptide (red box in H) with T-Coffee [46]. The color code below the alignment illustrates the level of conservation (cons.) from BAD (blue) to GOOD (red). Note that, with evolutionary distance, the sequence similarity decreases.

Gene-ID from NCBI or Ensembl-genome databases: Zebrafish, Danio rerio: NCBI-locus 560382; Medaka, Oryzias latipes: UTOLAPRE05100115054; Spotted pufferfish, Tetraodon nigroviridis: GSTENT00016539001; Tiger pufferfish, Takifugu rubripes: SINFRUT00000183089; Clawed frog, Xenopus tropicalis: ENSXETT00000045658; Chicken, Gallus gallus: ENSGALT00000019911; Platypus, Ornithorhynchus anatinus: GENSCAN00000155561; Opossum, Monodelphis domestica: GENSCAN00000062731; Cow, Bos taurus: GENSCAN00000042786, GENSCAN00000042790; Pig, Sus scrofa: Ssc.46160, Ssc.28451; Dog, Canis familiaris: GENSCAN00000091809, GENSCAN00000058820; Man, Homo sapiens: EU128483, EU128484