Skip Navigation


MBE Advance Access originally published online on August 3, 2005
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2005 22(12):2386-2394; doi:10.1093/molbev/msi229
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Supplementary Material
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
22/12/2386    most recent
msi229v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (18)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Nam, J.
Right arrow Articles by Nei, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Nam, J.
Right arrow Articles by Nei, M.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oupjournals.org

Research Article

Evolutionary Change of the Numbers of Homeobox Genes in Bilateral Animals

Jongmin Nam and Masatoshi Nei

Institute of Molecular Evolutionary Genetics and Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University

E-mail: jnam{at}caltech.edu.

It has been known that the conservation or diversity of homeobox genes is responsible for the similarity and variability of some of the morphological or physiological characters among different organisms. To gain some insights into the evolutionary pattern of homeobox genes in bilateral animals, we studied the change of the numbers of these genes during the evolution of bilateral animals. We analyzed 2,031 homeodomain sequences compiled from 11 species of bilateral animals ranging from Caenorhabditis elegans to humans. Our phylogenetic analysis using a modified reconciled-tree method suggested that there were at least about 88 homeobox genes in the common ancestor of bilateral animals. About 50–60 genes of them have left at least one descendant gene in each of the 11 species studied, suggesting that about 30–40 genes were lost in a lineage-specific manner. Although similar numbers of ancestral genes have survived in each species, vertebrate lineages gained many more genes by duplication than invertebrate lineages, resulting in more than 200 homeobox genes in vertebrates and about 100 in invertebrates. After these gene duplications, a substantial number of old duplicate genes have also been lost in each lineage. Because many old duplicate genes were lost, it is likely that lost genes had already been differentiated from other groups of genes at the time of gene loss. We conclude that both gain and loss of homeobox genes were important for the evolutionary change of phenotypic characters in bilateral animals.

Key Words: homeobox genes • molecular evolution • gene duplication • gene loss • evolutionary developmental biology


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Gen Biol EvolHome page
D. Dong, G. He, S. Zhang, and Z. Zhang
Evolution of Olfactory Receptor Genes in Primates Dominated by Birth-and-Death Process
Gen Biol Evol, August 20, 2009; 2009(0): 258 - 264.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 DatabaseHome page
R. T. Moreland, J. F. Ryan, C. Pan, and A. D. Baxevanis
The Homeodomain Resource: a comprehensive collection of sequence, structure, interaction, genomic and functional information on the homeodomain protein family
Database, April 28, 2009; 2009(0): bap004 - bap004.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
J. C. Opazo, F. G. Hoffmann, and J. F. Storz
Differential loss of embryonic globin genes during the radiation of placental mammals
PNAS, September 2, 2008; 105(35): 12950 - 12955.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
M. Nozawa, Y. Kawahara, and M. Nei
From the Cover: Genomic drift and copy number variation of sensory receptor genes in humans
PNAS, December 18, 2007; 104(51): 20421 - 20426.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 GeneticsHome page
W. Y. Low, H. L. Ng, C. J. Morton, M. W. Parker, P. Batterham, and C. Robin
Molecular Evolution of Glutathione S-Transferases in the Genus Drosophila
Genetics, November 1, 2007; 177(3): 1363 - 1375.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Hum Mol GenetHome page
X. Wang and J. Zhang
Rapid evolution of primate ESX1, an X-linked placenta- and testis-expressed homeobox gene
Hum. Mol. Genet., September 1, 2007; 16(17): 2053 - 2060.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Mol Biol EvolHome page
I. Gitelman
Evolution of the vertebrate twist family and synfunctionalization: a mechanism for differential gene loss through merging of expression domains
Mol. Biol. Evol., September 1, 2007; 24(9): 1912 - 1925.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
M. Nei
The new mutation theory of phenotypic evolution
PNAS, July 24, 2007; 104(30): 12235 - 12242.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USAHome page
M. Nozawa and M. Nei
Evolutionary dynamics of olfactory receptor genes in Drosophila species
PNAS, April 24, 2007; 104(17): 7122 - 7127.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.