Maintenance of functional equivalence during paralogous Hox gene evolution

Joy M. Greer, John Puetz, Kirk R. Thomas and Mario R. Capecchi ()
Additional contact information
Joy M. Greer: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Utah School of Medicine
John Puetz: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Utah School of Medicine
Kirk R. Thomas: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Utah School of Medicine
Mario R. Capecchi: Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Utah School of Medicine

Nature, 2000, vol. 403, issue 6770, 661-665

Abstract: Abstract Biological diversity is driven mainly by gene duplication followed by mutation and selection. This divergence in either regulatory or protein-coding sequences can result in quite different biological functions for even closely related genes. This concept is exemplified by the mammalian Hox gene complex, a group of 39 genes which are located on 4 linkage groups, dispersed on 4 chromosomes1,2,3,4. The evolution of this complex began with amplification in cis of a primordial Hox gene to produce 13 members, followed by duplications in trans of much of the entire unit. As a consequence, Hox genes that occupy the same relative position along the 5′ to 3′ chromosomal coordinate (trans-paralogous genes) share more similarity in sequence and expression pattern than do adjacent Hox genes on the same chromosome. Studies in mice indicate that although individual family members may have unique biological roles, they also share overlapping functions with their paralogues5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. Here we show that the proteins encoded by the paralogous genes, Hoxa3 and Hoxd3, can carry out identical biological functions, and that the different roles attributed to these genes are the result of quantitative modulations in gene expression.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35001077 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:403:y:2000:i:6770:d:10.1038_35001077

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/35001077

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().