Kathryn W. Davis Center for Regenerative Biology and Medicine, Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory, Salisbury Cove, ME 04672, USA.
Science. 2011 Dec 16;334(6062):1517. doi: 10.1126/science.1210912.
Hox proteins are a metazoan-specific family of transcription factors that are required for developmental patterning. The genomic arrangement of Hox genes into four paralogous clusters is a primitive feature of jawed vertebrates. By using high-throughput sequencing, we demonstrate the absence of all HoxC transcripts from embryos of the shark Scyliorhinus canicula and the skate Leucoraja erinacea and the absence of all HoxC genes and two HoxC-associated microRNAs from the genome of L. erinacea. These data suggest a loss of the entire HoxC cluster in elasmobranch fishes and represent evidence for the natural deletion of an entire Hox cluster in vertebrates.
Hox 蛋白是后生动物特有的一类转录因子,对于发育模式的形成至关重要。Hox 基因在基因组中排列成四个同源簇,这是有颌脊椎动物的原始特征。通过高通量测序,我们证明了软骨鱼鲨鱼 Scyliorhinus canicula 和鳐鱼 Leucoraja erinacea 的胚胎中不存在所有的 HoxC 转录本,以及鳐鱼 L. erinacea 的基因组中不存在所有的 HoxC 基因和两个 HoxC 相关 microRNA。这些数据表明软骨鱼纲鱼类失去了整个 HoxC 簇,为脊椎动物整个 Hox 簇的自然缺失提供了证据。