(A) BLAST analyses to identify candidate orthologs of the Drosophila protein. An uncharacterized mouse gene, termed Gene model 114 (Gm114) encodes a predicted protein with significant similarity to Bam (identical residues in red, conserved residues in blue, yellow is PEST sequence not contained in murine protein). Region of highest homology is boxed in (A) and aligned with other potential vertebrate orthologs identified in human, chicken, and zebrafish (B). (C) A phylogenetic tree of GM114 orthologs shows high conservation among mammalian species. Evolutionary distance was calculated and drawn using the Clustalw program at (http://myhits.isb-sib.ch/cgi-bin/clustalw). All putative orthologs are predicted genes with unknown function: Mus musculus (NP_001028470), Rattus norvegicus (ref|XP_230657.4|), Canis familiaris (ref|XP_848458.1|), Homo sapiens (gb|AAI05094.1|), Macaca mulatta (ref|XP_001093783.1|), Macaca fascicularis (dbj|BAE87931.1|), Bos taurus (ref|XP_591416.3|), Gallus gallus (ref|NP_001006394.1|), Tribolium castaneum (ref|XP_973854.1|), Drosophila melanogaster (NP_476800), Danio rerio (.ref|NP_001091860.1|).