Figure 1

Genomic organization of novel human β-defensin genes. (a) The genomic organization of novel human β-defensin genes DEFB105, DEFB106, DEFB107, DEFB108 and DEFB109p on 8p22-p23. The horizontal lines represent the three BAC clones in which all novel genes were found. Exons are represented as triangles with the vertical side representing the position of the exon. Exons above the horizontal lines are transcribed from the strand represented by the original BAC clone sequence entries whereas those below are transcribed in the opposite direction from the complementary strand. The region depicted is about 350 kb centromeric of DEFB1. Those genes marked with an asterisk were found to have orthologs in baboon genomic sequences (AC116558 and AC116559). (b) A phylogenetic tree of functional human β-defensins using the prepropeptide sequences encoded by the genes shown in (a). The phylogenetic tree was rooted with chicken gallinacin 1 (GGGAL1; P46156) and the reliability of each branch was assessed using 1,000 bootstrap replications.