Hoxful Monsters

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 …

Its really heartening to read an article which has neatly designed genetic experiments because its not very often you come across such great genetic work.It surprised me a bit initially not see any biochemical evidence but I personally like this way, may be being a geneticist at heart.Latest issue of development contains an article from the group of Ernesto Sanchez herrero ( an exceptional geneticist) dealing with autoregulation of Hox gene Ultrabithorax (Ubx). Infact autoregulation of Ubx was known since early 90’s but not much was known about mechanism involved …

In order to perform comparative study of Homeodomain containing genes within and in between species ,requires a evolutionary based classification, HomeoDB does that to perfection.

HomeoDB was designed and implemented as a manually curated database to collect and present homeobox genes in an evolutionarily structured way, allowing genes, gene families and gene classes to be compared between species more readily than was possible previously.
In the first release of HomeoDB ,all homeodomain genes from Amphioxus (Branchiostoma floridae ), fruitfly (Drosophila melanogaster and Humans are included .Soon one might expect addition …

A novel mechanism of Hox proteins was deciphered by the group of Brian Gebelein ,where in Hox protein Abdominal -A (abd-A) permits secretion of EGF in Peripheral nervous system(PNS) by promoting rhomboid expression and by competing out senseless.
Hox genes are known for their selector activity which sculpt the body plan along anterior posterior axis. Hox protein control patterning of body plan in almost all metazoans by regulating distinct cells, tissues, and organs. So understanding how Hox proteins function is utmost important for better understanding of development and evolution.

Homeodomain containing transcription factors are vital for proper development and differentiation in animals,plants and fungi. This 60 amino acid conserved DNA binding motif is found in six different class of proteins: ANTP, PRD, POU, LIM, SIX and TALE. Huge gene diversity in Antennapedia class of homeodomain proteins account for evolution of body plans,regulation of body axis formation,symmetry and Nervous system.
The ANTP superclass consists of the Hox/ParaHox, extended Hox, and NKL genes (their relatedness complies with the above order). All Bilateria possess Hox/ParaHox,NKL, and extended Hox genes . and many of …

Antennapedia ( Antp) class of Homeobox genes ( Hox, Para Hox and Nk genes) are considered to have played a very important role in diversity of animal body plan. Information obtained from genome sequences of diploblastic animals like Cntenophores and sponges reveal that they have only Nk genes from the Antp class and sponges lacked Hox genes from the beginning or had lost them during evolution.Information of these important developmental regulators in basal species provide valuable information for their role in higher organisms, as they are highly conserved through out …

Genetics is a discipline initially worked out by Gregor Mendel (Austrian monk) using common pea plants in his garden.Since then many great minds used genetics to understand important problem of biology