988.
Hox genes are a remarkable example of conservation in animal development and their nested expression along the head‐to‐tail axis orchestrates embryonic patterning. Early in vertebrate history, two duplications led to the emergence of four
Hox clusters (A‐D) and redundancy within paralog groups has been partially accommodated with gene losses. Here we conduct an inventory of squamate
Hox genes using the genomes of 10 lizard and 7 snake species. Although the
HoxC1 gene has been hypothesized to be lost in the amniote ancestor, we reveal that it is retained in lizards. In contrast, all snakes lack functional
HoxC1 and
‐D12 genes. Varying levels of degradation suggest differences in the process of gene loss between the two genes. The vertebrate
HoxC1 gene is prone to gene loss and its functional domains are more variable than those of other
Hox1 genes. We describe for the first time the
HoxC1 expression patterns in tetrapods.
HoxC1 is broadly expressed during development in the diencephalon, the neural tube, dorsal root ganglia, and limb buds in two lizard species. Our study emphasizes the value of revisiting
Hox gene repertoires by densely sampling taxonomic groups and its feasibility owing to growing sequence resources in evaluating gene repertoires across taxa.
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