Fig. 1.

Nlgn4 gene and Nlgn4 protein in mice. (A) A phage clone comprising parts of the Nlgn4 sequence (“Nlgn4*,” Bolliger et al. 2008) was used for fluorescence in situ-hybridization (FISH) to determine the physical localization of Nlgn4 in the mouse genome. FISH-positive signals were found in the pseudoautosomal region of both sex chromosomes as well as in a telomeric region of chromosome 9. Arrows indicate relative chromosomal locations of FISH signals. (B) Schematic overview illustrating the protein-coding region on the different exons (blue) as well as the relative position of the signal peptide (SP), cholinesterase-like domain, transmembrane domain (TM), and PDZ-binding motif (PDZ) within the NLGN4 protein. The protein sequence of five selected laboratory mouse strains and the wild-derived strain CAST/EiJ were aligned, and synonymous and nonsynonymous amino acid variations were highlighted using the one-letter amino acid code. Numerals represent varying amino acid insertions found in several strains. The relative evolutionary relationship of the different mouse strains is depicted on the left side of the colored boxes (not drawn to scale).