Duplications of Hox Gene Clusters and the Emergence of Vertebrates
Developmental Biology 378 (2013) 194–199 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Developmental Biology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/developmentalbiology Duplications of hox gene clusters and the emergence of vertebrates Natalia Soshnikova a,b, Romain Dewaele a, Philippe Janvier c, Robb Krumlauf d,e, Denis Duboule a,f,n a Department of Genetics and Evolution, University of Geneva, Sciences III, Quai Ernest-Ansermet 30, 1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland b Institute of Molecular Biology, Ackermannweg 4, 55128 Mainz, Germany c Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, UMR 7207, CP38, 8, rue Buffon 75231, Paris Cedex 05, France d Stowers Institute for Medical Research, Kansas City, MO 64110, USA e Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Kansas University Medical Center, Kansas City, Kansas, USA f School of Life Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland article info abstract Article history: The vertebrate body plan is characterized by an increased complexity relative to that of all other Received 6 February 2013 chordates and large-scale gene amplifications have been associated with key morphological innovations Accepted 5 March 2013 leading to their remarkable evolutionary success. Here, we use compound full Hox clusters deletions to Available online 15 March 2013 investigate how Hox genes duplications may have contributed to the emergence of vertebrate-specific Keywords: innovations. We show that the combined deletion of HoxA and HoxB leads to an atavistic heart Neo-functionalization phenotype, suggesting that the ancestral HoxA/B cluster was co-opted to help in diversifying the Genome duplication complex organ in vertebrates. Other phenotypic effects observed seem to illustrate the resurgence of 2R ancestral (plesiomorphic) features.
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