Characterization of the Hox cluster from the mosquito Anopheles gambiae (Diptera: culicidae)

SUMMARY The Hox genes have been found to encode transcription factors, which specify the morphological identity of structures along the anteroposterior axis of animals ranging from worms to mice. The canonical set of nine genes is organized in a cluster in the genome of several protostomes and deute...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Evolution & development Vol. 2; no. 6; pp. 311 - 325
Main Authors:	Powers, Thomas P., Hogan, Jim, Ke, Zhaoxi, Dymbrowski, Kirk, Wang, Xuelan, Collins, Frank H., Kaufman, Thomas C.
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Boston, MA, USA Blackwell Science Inc 01-11-2000
Subjects:	Amino Acid Sequence Animals Anopheles - genetics Chromosome Mapping Chromosomes, Artificial, Bacterial Cloning, Molecular Genes, Homeobox Molecular Sequence Data Multigene Family Polymerase Chain Reaction Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	SUMMARY The Hox genes have been found to encode transcription factors, which specify the morphological identity of structures along the anteroposterior axis of animals ranging from worms to mice. The canonical set of nine genes is organized in a cluster in the genome of several protostomes and deuterostomes. However, within insects, whereas the Hox genes are organized in a single cluster in the beetle Tribolium castaneum, they are split into two separate groups in the flies Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila virilis. The significance of a split Hox cluster is unknown and has been observed in only one organism outside the Drosophila lineage: the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. We have cloned a majority of the Hox genes from the mosquito Anopheles gambiae (Diptera: Culicidae) and compared their genomic organization with that of Tribolium and Drosophila to determine if a split Hox cluster is found in dipterans aside from the Drosophilidae. We find that the Hox genes in Anopheles, as in Tribolium, are organized in a single cluster that spans a genomic region of at least 700 kb. This finding suggests that, within the insect genome, the partition of the Hox cluster may have evolved exclusively within the Drosophila lineage. The genomic structures of the resident genes, however, appear to be largely conserved between A. gambiae and D. melanogaster.
Bibliography:	ArticleID:EDE00072 istex:97F41861B12F7F3DF3F3126918B666FB0C446D2E ark:/67375/WNG-3CNCBWCL-V ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	1520-541X 1525-142X
DOI:	10.1046/j.1525-142x.2000.00072.x