Hox proteins provide positional cues along the anterior posterior axis in majority of animals on this planet. This positional information is crucial in segment specific morphogenesis. Hox proteins is a part of antennapedia class of proteins, which consists of about 100 genes in bilaterians , divided into 30 gene families belonging to four major groups: HOX / PARAHOX genes (45 genes, four gene families), HOX-related genes (nine genes, five gene families), NK genes (16 genes, seven gene families), and NK-related genes (28 genes, 18 pseudogenes, 14 gene families). (1040)

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For the benefit of new readers of Hoxful Monsters, here is the list of top Hox and evo devo posts published in the blog in last few years:
1)This blog post talks about Hox genes in Cindarians and was published in Hoxful Monsters blog in 2008.
Title of the post is : Hox genes in Cnidarians : The story of Nematostella and Eleutheria and basically talks about two article from PLOS ONE journalin year 2007.
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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 …

There was a mad rush to get to the base of animal tree of life in the past twelve months, in order to establish most primitive animal on our planet, with many phylogenomics studies contradicting each other. In April 2008, Cassey dunn et el published their famous phylogenomics work in Nature, which placed Ctenophores at the base of the tree making them most primitive animal on Earth. Before that work Sponges were considered as first animals to branch off from rest of the animals and hence occupied a most basal …

Eyes form a window through which we see the world around us and usually the first feature to get noticed when you look at a person.Eyes are signature of beauty and these beautiful organ forms an excellent example of homologous organ present in wide varieties of animals. Eyes happen to be very complex and delicate organs ,where many functional parts will work together to make sight possible in animals.Evolution of eyes forms a subject of significant and controversial study ever since the days of Charles Darwin.The evolution of a structure …

The theory of Cambrian explosion states that most of the animal groups found today appeared for the first time some 545 million years ago within a short period of 5 to 10 million years. This is pretty well studied and amazing episode of Earth animal history , based on the fossil record indicates that diversity among animals forms evolved very rapidly during cambrian era . Recently researchers from scientists from UC Riverside, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (and other institutions ) using the revolutionary new technology developed at The University …

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 …