Figure 2

Organization of BDNF gene in mouse, man and fish. The boxes represent exons and the lines introns, 5' flanks and 3' flank. Exons containing highly conserved sequences (HCS) have the same colors. The positions of the mouse BDNF gene exons were taken from sequence posted in the NCBI databank, accession AY057907. The rat exons were published by Timmusk et al. [47] and Bishop et al. [48]. The sequences posted in the NCBI databank (Accession numbers S76799, S76760, S76759, S76758, S76757, X67107, X67106, X67108) were compared with the mouse and found to be >98% identical. Their positions in the rat gene were assumed to be identical to those of the mouse exons. The positions of the human BDNF gene exons were taken from the sequence posted in the NCBI databank, accession number AF411339. The pufferfish BDNF gene sequence was taken from the Ensembl Genome Data Resource of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre http://www.sanger.ac.uk/), scaffold_551 and scaffold_1408. Exons 1α, β, and a were mapped by comparison of the 5'RACE clone sequences with the nucleotide sequence of c241 established in this laboratory [20, 21]. Exons 1b, b', 1c, and 2 of the zebrafish BDNF gene were mapped on the sequence of clone CH211-251J8, posted in the NCBI databank, accession number AL935207. Zebrafish and pufferfish gene exon sequences were >75% identical including presumptive exon 1d.