Surprising flexibility in a conserved Hox transcription factor over 550 million years of evolution.

ABSTRACT: Although metazoan body plans are remarkably diverse, the structure and function of many embryonic regulatory genes are conserved because large changes would be detrimental to development. However, the fushi tarazu (ftz) gene has changed dramatically during arthropod evolution from Hox-like to a pair-rule segmentation gene in Drosophila. Changes in both expression and protein sequence contributed to this new function: ftz expression switched from Hox-like to stripes and changes in Ftz cofactor interaction motifs led to loss of homeotic and gain of segmentation potential. Here, we reconstructed ftz changes in a rigorous phylogenetic context. We found that ftz did not simply switch from Hox-like to segmentation function; rather, ftz is remarkably labile, having undergone multiple changes in s

SUBMITTER: Heffer A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2964257 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature