Radical alterations in the roles of homeobox genes during echinoderm evolution

Christopher J. Lowe and Gregory A. Wray ()
Additional contact information
Christopher J. Lowe: State University of New York
Gregory A. Wray: State University of New York

Nature, 1997, vol. 389, issue 6652, 718-721

Abstract: Abstract Echinoderms possess one of the most highly derived body architectures of all metazoan phyla, with radial symmetry, a calcitic endoskeleton, and a water vascular system1,2. How these dramatic morphological changes evolved has been the subject of extensive speculation and debate3,4,5, but remains unresolved. Because echinoderms are closely related to chordates and postdate the protostome/deuterostome divergence2,3,6,7, they must have evolved from bilaterally symmetrical ancestors1,2,3,4,5,6. Here we report the expression domains in echinoderms of three important developmental regulatory genes ( distal-less, engrailed and orthodenticle ), all of which encode transcription factors that contain a homeodomain8. Our findings show that the reorganization of body architecture involved extensive changes in the deployment and roles of homeobox genes. These changes include modifications in the symmetry of expression domains and the evolution of several new developmental roles, as well as the loss of roles conserved between arthropods and chordates. Some of these modifications seem to have evolved very early in the history of echinoderms, whereas others probably evolved during the subsequent diversification of adult and larval morphology. These results demonstrate the evolutionary lability of regulatory genes that are widely viewed as conservative.

Date: 1997
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/39580 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:389:y:1997:i:6652:d:10.1038_39580

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

DOI: 10.1038/39580

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 ().