One of the most fascinating thing about life is to understand how we grow from a single celled embryo to a functional human being or for that matter to know about development of all the beautiful forms of life around us. All living organisms arise from a single cell and it was always an interesting puzzle to understand How different tissue forms an organ and how these different organs gets perfectly placed in the animal body?Are these things preplanned ? Is it possible to have eyes coming out from our legs? Are the positions of hind limbs and fore limbs pre programmed?

Thanks to excellent work done by some great scientists and their students we have decent enough information about development of an embryo into a multicellular organism. Hox genes play a pivotal role in organization of body plan with help from other important proteins (Signaling molecules, transcription factors etc.)These Hox genes are conserved throughout evolution.

There are not many exclusive books available of these transcription factors ,but slowly with increasing amount of research being done on these proteins and more information available ,lead to an intresting book called “Hox gene Expression”. This book is published by Springer and is divided into 9 chapters encompassing 159 pages. The book starts with an excellent chapter dealing with discovery of homeodomain 25 years ago by Walter Gehring.Other chapters gives the reader a deep insight about role played by Hox proteins in Nervous system and vertebrate limb development.But my favorite chapter is one written by David E.K. Ferrier on Evolution of Hox Gene Clusters.There is also something for chromatin followers also -Laila Kobrossy and Mark Featherstone talks about Chromatin and the Control of Hox Gene Expression.Final two chapters deal with Hox genes normal and abnormal function.

Its a must buy for all researchers and students of biology and medicine.This book can be bought online on springer and Amazon.

This is not all about exclusive books on Hox genes,come April 2009 there will be one more book on HOX GENES by Elsevier.The contents of this book are :

1) Hox Genes in the Nervous System of Vertebrates Author: Krumlauf 2) Evolution of Hox Gene Clusters Author: D Ferrier 3) Hox Genes in Breast Development and Breast Cancer Author: C Hagios 4) Endocrine Regulation of Hox Genes Author: G Daftary 5) Role of Hox Genes in Bladder Cancer 6) Consequences of Hox Gene Duplication in Vertebrates Author: McClintock 7) Hox Genes and Limb Evolution Author: Jimenez

Edited by Olivier Pourquie.

These two books will be a great addition to your home library.

Related Posts:

• Two new books from springer – Evolutionary Biology
• New Book on Hox Genes: By Olivier Pourquie
• Interview with Eddy De Robertis
• Antennapedia mega cluster and Super Hox cluster
• My favorite Insect Books

SHARE THIS ARTICLE