Deschamps Jacqueline, van Nes Johan
Hubrecht Laboratory, Netherlands Institute for Developmental Biology, Uppsalalaan 8, 3584 CT Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Development. 2005 Jul;132(13):2931-42. doi: 10.1242/dev.01897.
The Hox genes confer positional information to the axial and paraxial tissues as they emerge gradually from the posterior aspect of the vertebrate embryo. Hox genes are sequentially activated in time and space, in a way that reflects their organisation into clusters in the genome. Although this co-linearity of expression of the Hox genes has been conserved during evolution, it is a phenomenon that is still not understood at the molecular level. This review aims to bring together recent findings that have advanced our understanding of the regulation of the Hox genes during mouse embryonic development. In particular, we highlight the integration of these transducers of anteroposterior positional information into the genetic network that drives tissue generation and patterning during axial elongation.
随着脊椎动物胚胎的轴旁组织从后端逐渐出现，Hox基因赋予其位置信息。Hox基因在时间和空间上依次被激活，其方式反映了它们在基因组中聚集成簇的组织形式。尽管Hox基因表达的这种共线性在进化过程中得以保留，但这一现象在分子水平上仍未得到理解。本综述旨在汇集近期的研究发现，这些发现推进了我们对小鼠胚胎发育过程中Hox基因调控的理解。特别是，我们强调了这些前后位置信息转导因子如何整合到驱动轴向伸长过程中组织生成和模式形成的遗传网络中。
