Functional diversification of sonic hedgehog paralog enhancers identified by phylogenomic reconstruction.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Cis-regulatory modules of developmental genes are targets of evolutionary changes that underlie the morphologic diversity of animals. Little is known about the 'grammar' of interactions between transcription factors and cis-regulatory modules and therefore about the molecular mechanisms that underlie changes in these modules, particularly after gene and genome duplications. We investigated the ar-C midline enhancer of sonic hedgehog (shh) orthologs and paralogs from distantly related vertebrate lineages, from fish to human, including the basal vertebrate Latimeria menadoensis.

Results

We demonstrate that the sonic hedgehog a (shha) paralogs sonic hedgehog b (tiggy winkle hedgehog; shhb) genes of fishes have a modified ar-C enhancer, which specifies a diverged func

SUBMITTER: Hadzhiev Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2394741 | biostudies-literature | 2007

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature