Molecular evolutionary biologists,
I'm writing a paper where we identify five new members
of a gene family. This brings the total number of identified
proteins in vertebrates to eight. In addition there are five
Drosophila members of this family and one bacterial. What
characteristics would make these proteins a superfamily, family,
or subfamily? They all contain a conserved domain, and all but
two contain a second domain shared by bunches of proteins. The
splicing patterns of a couple of these proteins have been
determined, and they are also conserved (in the conserved
domains).
Any insight would be appreciated, as I can't seem to
find a cogent definition of these terms. I get the feeling
people throw them around a lot.
John Hogenesch
john at pc029.pharm.nwu.edu
