Compilation and assembly of previously uncharacterized TACC cDNAs and genes
Corresponding orthologous sequences for TACC, RHAMM, KLP, KIF, TPM and keratins families were identified initially using the TBLASTN program [36] to search the published genomic and cDNA databases. For Takifugu rubripes, gene predictions were produced by the Ensembl automated pipeline [37] and the JGI blast server . DNA sequences covering the homology regions were extracted and analyzed by Genscan to obtain potential exons. In some cases, exons were added or modified based on the best similarity of translated peptides to the corresponding mouse and human proteins. For regions with low sequence similarity, genomic sequences  from the fresh water pufferfish, Tetraodon nigroviridis were used as additional means to verify the predicted exons. Due to the variability of the central region of vertebrate TACC3 cDNAs (see text), to further confirm prediction of the Takifugu rubripes TACC3, full length cDNAs corresponding to the Danio rerio TACC3 (IMAGE clones 2639991, 2640369 and 3724452) were also obtained from A.T.C.C. and fully sequenced. Potential paralogous chromosomal segments and scaffold were identified by searching the public databases deposited at NCBI and at the Human Genome Mapping Project, Cambridge UK.