Double-segment defining role of even-skipped homologs along the evolution of insect pattern formation |
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Authors: | Xin Xu Pin-Xian Xu Kazuhito Amanai Yoshiaki Suzuki |
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Affiliation: | Department of Developmental Biology, National Institute for Basic Biology, Myodaiji, Okazaki 444, Japan. |
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Abstract: | Recent studies on insect patterning suggest that the genetic hierarchy may be roughly conserved in phylogenetically divergent species, but pair-rule genes may not function identically in all insects. In order to understand potential evolutionary changes in the role of the pair-rule genes, a Bombyx even-skipped homolog was cloned and its expression pattern during early embryogenesis studied. Eight stripes of Bombyx even-skipped were progressively expressed in an antero–posterior order. Later, these stripes disappeared anteriorly. Under this detection system, Bombyx even-skipped stripes clearly do not resolve into the corre sponding secondary stripes, an obvious difference from Drosophila and Tribolium . These results suggest that Bombyx even-skipped may serve a double-segment defining role and may determine the odd-numbered engrailed stripes. |
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Keywords: | even-skipped gene gap genes in situ hybridization molecular evolution pair-rule genes segmentation |
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