EVOLUTION OF THE DYSTROPHIN MUSCULAR PROMOTER AND 5'-FLANKING REGION IN PRIMATES

About 1.6 kb of the noncoding region upstream of the muscular dystroph in gene was sequenced in human and other primates. The alignment showe d the existence of many stretches of conserved sequences among the com pared species distributed all along the investigated fragment, includi ng the 5' end. In correspondence to these conserved boxes, we identifi ed several new putative cis-acting elements that have similarity to kn own control regions of other muscle-specific genes. In some cases, how ever, the conserved sequences did not correspond to any known transcri ption factor binding sites. The rate of evolution estimated site by si te all along the investigated region revealed a nonhomogeneous distrib ution of the substitution rate, several sequences exhibited a very slo w rate of evolution suggesting that evolutionary forces of different n ature may be at work. On the basis of the sequence alignment, we recon structed the phylogenetic relationships within the hominoid lineage. I n addition, we estimated the relative rate of evolution between homino id and Old World monkeys, confirming the existence of an evolutionary slowdown in the hominoid lineage.