New study conducted by Schierwater, B. et al. have shown that the Triploblastic bilaterians and diploblastic animals ( Placozoa,Sponges,Ctenophores and Cnidarians) animals , probably separated very early, at the very beginning of animal evolution and independently evolved their complex body plans, including body axes, nervous system, sensory organs, and other characteristics. In the present study authors analysed morphological and genetic information from 24 metazoan lineages and the resultant phylogeny tree shows a early divergence of simple animals from complex ones ,during the metazoan evolution . One line of the new …

Hox genes are homeodomain containing transcription factors playing a crucial role in patterning the antero-posterior ( AP) axis in bilaterians.The mechanism of patterning by Hox genes is remarkably conserved across the entire bilateria even though huge diversification of body plan exists. The fact that orthologous genes display similar genomic organisation and expression patterns with comparable spatial and temporal characteristics in distantly related species has provided clues for understanding the evolution of the body plan. It was with discovery of homeodomain and later with similarity of Hox clusters in Mice and …

Introduction:
‘Orphans’ was the name given to the these Hox related genes earlier, till Brooke et al in 1998 made it clear that these orphan genes were in fact clustered in Amphioxus, Branchiostoma floridae. This cluster was named ParaHox, which is the paralogue of the Hox cluster. Para Hox genes encode very similar homeodoamain and its very easy to get confused with those of HOX genes in absence of linkage analysis and expression data. In Amphioxus ,these Hox-like genes (Gsx [genomic screened homeobox], Xlox/Ipf1 [Xenopus laevis homeobox 8/insulin promoter factor 1], …

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.