Skip Navigation


MBE Advance Access originally published online on May 9, 2008
Molecular Biology and Evolution 2008 25(8):1521-1525; doi:10.1093/molbev/msn109
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
25/8/1521    most recent
msn109v1
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 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 arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Irimia, M.
Right arrow Articles by Garcia-Fernàndez, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Irimia, M.
Right arrow Articles by Garcia-Fernàndez, J.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. 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@oxfordjournals.org

Letters

Convergent Evolution of Clustering of Iroquois Homeobox Genes across Metazoans

Manuel Irimia1, Ignacio Maeso1 and Jordi Garcia-Fernàndez

Departament de Genètica, Facultat de Biologia, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

E-mail: jordigarcia{at}ub.edu.

Accepted for publication May 5, 2008.

Vertebrate and Drosophila Iroquois genes are organized in clusters of 3 genes sharing blocks of conserved regulatory sequences. Here, we report a 3-gene cluster in the basal, preduplicative chordate amphioxus. Surprisingly, however, the origin of the amphioxus cluster is independent of those in vertebrates and drosophilids. Investigation of genomic organization of Iroquois genes in other 17 metazoan genomes revealed a fourth independent 3-gene cluster organization in polychaetes, as well as additional 2- and 4-gene clusters in other clades, in one of the most striking examples of convergence in genomic organization described so far. The recurrent independent evolution of Iroquois clusters suggests a functional importance of this organization for these genes, perhaps related to the sharing of regulatory elements. Consistent with this, comparative analysis of genomic regions flanking the 3 amphioxus Irx genes revealed several blocks of sequences, conserved for at least 100 Myr. Finally, we discuss the possible causes and implications of the convergent evolution of this genomic and regulatory organization throughout metazoans.

Key Words: amphioxus • Iroquois • genome evolution • gene cluster • convergent evolution • synteny conservation

1 These authors contributed equally to this work.

Billie Swalla, Associate Editor


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




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.