Figure 15.

Diversification in the Sp185/333 system in the purple sea urchin. Putative diversification mechanisms based on genomic instability may function to increase gene sequence diversity and may also vary the size of the gene family among individuals. mRNA sequence diversity imparted by the genes is expanded by editing some of the mRNAs in addition to possible low fidelity transcription. The mRNAs are translated to generate a broad array of proteins that may multimerize and be post-translationally modified. The end result is protein diversity that is much broader than what is encoded by the genes.