The latest issue of Current Topics in Developmental Biology features all the chapters of the new book on Hox genes ,which is edited by Olivier Pourquie. The hardbound copy of the book can be bought online from springer and Amazon.However one needs a subscription to the journal to see the full text of the chapters from the book.
This book has several interesting chapters covering all important aspects of these master regulator genes and also has Preface by Olivier Pourquié.I have started reading the first three chapters (as they …

In the previous two posts related to tunicates , we saw a brief introduction to them and also their position in the tree of life.Today we take a look into some aspects of Hox genes in these amazing animals. We live on a wonderful planet which is full of life and there exists enormous diversity when it comes to body plan of animals.Its more amazing to know that all animals are made up of essentially almost similar set of genes but only thing that differs is the combination’s of the …

As we have seen in earlier post that in Tribolium , the second thoracic segment (T2 segment) bears sclerotized elytra and T3 bears more classical membranous wings for flight.The difference between dipterans and coleopetrans in developing membranous wings for flight( Dipterans have flight wings on T2 and Coleopetrans on T3) could be due to different expression pattern of Ubx hox protein in these two insects orders. However, detection of Ultrathorax (Utx), the protein product of the Tribolium Ubx orthologue, showed that Utx, like its Drosophila counterpart, is expressed in …

Do you know that Beetles account for around 25% of all known life-forms on this planet. They belong to the order Coleoptera, which happens to be the largest and most diverse order, not only in the insect class, but in the entire animal kingdom. It is believed that there are eight times as many beetle species as there are fish, amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal species all put together. Eight times!!! Those are really huge numbers of beetles which goes on to tell us that these creatures can survive in …

Scientists from France,Germany and Canada have recently put forward a new tree of life based on the most comprehensive phylogenomics study to date ,investigating 128 genes from a total of 55 species – including nine poriferans, eight cnidarians, three ctenophores and the single known species of placozoans. This study was mainly done to overcome the confusions prevailing at the base of the tree of metazoans and also to establish relationships between some of these very early animal groups with a high degree of confidence.
This new study revives traditional views …

Bithorax complex in Drosophila consists of three homeodomain encoding proteins : Ultrabithorax (Ubx), abdominal-A (abd-A) and Abdominal-B (Abd-B). The function of these bithorax genes is to pattern entire abdomen ( A1-A9 segments ) and a part of third thoracic segment ,which happens to be their normal expression domain in embryos. These Hox proteins are expressed within specific parasegments (PS) , anatomical units that include the posterior portion of one segment and the anterior portion of the adjacent segment.
But the problem is that we have only three proteins and they need …

Our lab in Ibdml Marseille published a new review article on Hox protein function ,which is currently online and print issue will be released in may ( It also happens to be on the cover of May issue) This review is an effort to better understand molecular mechanism employed by Hox proteins while performing their biological functions. Here my colleagues looked into the sequences of Hox proteins from main evolutionary branches of bilateria, which includes lophotrochozoa (capitella) ,Ecdysozoa (Tribolium) and humans, amphioxus from Deuterostomia.