Mistry et al. BMC Genomics (2020) 21:602 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-020-07016-9 RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access Expression profiling of WD40 family genes including DDB1- and CUL4- associated factor (DCAF) genes in mice and human suggests important regulatory roles in testicular development and spermatogenesis Bhavesh V. Mistry1, Maha Alanazi1, Hanae Fitwi1,2, Olfat Al-Harazi3, Mohamed Rajab1, Abdullah Altorbag1, Falah Almohanna1, Dilek Colak2 and Abdullah M. Assiri1,3,4* Abstract Background: The WD40-repeat containing proteins, including DDB1–CUL4-associated factors (DCAFs), are abundant and conserved proteins that play important roles in different cellular processes including spermatogenesis. DCAFs are subset of WD40 family proteins that contain WDxR motif and have been proposed to function as substrate receptor for Cullin4-RING-based E3 ubiquitin ligase complexes to recruit diverse proteins for ubiquitination, a vital process in spermatogenesis. Large number of WD40 genes has been identified in different species including mouse and human. However, a systematic expression profiling of WD40 genes in different tissues of mouse and human has not been investigated. We hypothesize that large number of WD40 genes may express highly or specifically in the testis, where their expression is uniquely regulated during testis development and spermatogenesis. Therefore, the objective of this study is to mine and characterize expression patterns of WD40 genes in different tissues of mouse and human with particular emphasis on DCAF genes expressions during mouse testicular development. (Continued on next page) * Correspondence:
[email protected] 1Department of Comparative Medicine, King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia 3Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Scientific Computing Department, King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s).