Posterior Hox gene reduction in an arthropod: Ultrabithorax and Abdominal-B are expressed in a single segment in the mite Archegozetes longisetosus.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Hox genes encode transcription factors that have an ancestral role in all bilaterian animals in specifying regions along the antero-posterior axis. In arthropods (insects, crustaceans, myriapods and chelicerates), Hox genes function to specify segmental identity, and changes in Hox gene expression domains in different segments have been causal to the evolution of novel arthropod morphologies. Despite this, the roles of Hox genes in arthropods that have secondarily lost or reduced their segmental composition have been relatively unexplored. Recent data suggest that acariform mites have a reduced segmental component of their posterior body tagma, the opisthosoma, in that only two segments are patterned during embryogenesis. This is in contrast to the observation that in ma

SUBMITTER: Barnett AA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3766265 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature