<p>This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.</p> <p>The cadherin superfamily is a diverse and multifunctional group of proteins with
extensive representation across genomes of phylogenetically distant species that is
involved in cell–cell communication and adhesion. The mosquito <italic>Anopheles gambiae</italic>
is an emerging model organism for the study of innate immunity and host–pathogen
interactions, where the malaria parasite induces a profound rearrangement of the
actin cytoskeleton at critical stages of infection. We have used bioinformatics tools
to retrieve present sequence knowledge about the complete repertoire of cadherins
in <italic>A. gambiae</italic> and compared it to that of the fruit fly, <italic>Drosophila melanogaster</italic>. In
<italic>A. gambiae</italic>, we have identified 43 genes coding for cadherin extracellular domains
that were re-annotated to 38 genes and represent an expansion of this gene family in
comparison to other invertebrate organisms. The majority of <italic>Drosophila</italic> cadherins
show a 1 : 1 <italic>Anopheles</italic> orthologue, but we have observed a remarkable expansion in
some groups in <italic>A. gambiae</italic>, such as N-cadherins, that were recently shown to have a
role in the olfactory system of the fruit fly. <italic>In vivo</italic> dsRNA silencing of overrepresented
genes in <italic>A. gambiae</italic> and other genes showing expression at critical tissues for parasite
infection will likely advance our understanding of the problems of host preference and
host–pathogen interactions in this mosquito species.</p>
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Comp Funct Genomics. 2005 Jun; 6(4):204-216