Fig. 2

Evolution of the ADAMTS family. a A schematic representation of the relationships of the eight vertebrate ADAMTS clades and the probable events (gene duplications and a retrotransposition) that have contributed to the expansion of the family. The figure is not to scale in terms of evolutionary distance. COMP, cartilage oligomeric protein; vWFCP, von-Willebrand-factor-cleaving protease. b Phylogenetic tree of the ADAMTS genes inferred by the maximum likelihood method based on the JTT matrix-based model [144]. The bootstrap consensus tree inferred from 1,000 replicates was taken to represent the evolutionary history of the taxa analyzed [145]. Branches corresponding to partitions reproduced in less than 50 % bootstrap replicates were collapsed. Initial tree(s) for the heuristic search were obtained by applying the neighbor-joining method to a matrix of pairwise distances estimated using a JTT model. The analysis involved 70 amino acid sequences. All positions containing gaps and missing data were eliminated. Evolutionary analyses were conducted in MEGA6 [146]. The vertebrate ADAMTS genes are indicated by a number followed by a single letter code indicating the species: for example, 1 t represents 1_t ADAMTS1 from Xenopus tropicalis; 15 h is 15_h ADAMTS15 from Homo sapiens; 8 m is ADAMTS8 from Mus musculus. For Drosophila melanogaster (dro), Caenorhabditis elegans (cel) and Ciona intestinalis (cio), the annotation is species followed by the gene number; for example, cio 6 is cio_6 ADAMTS6 from Ciona