Shepherd J C, McGinnis W, Carrasco A E, De Robertis E M, Gehring W J
Nature. 1984;310(5972):70-1. doi: 10.1038/310070a0.
Homoeotic genes in the bithorax and Antennapedia complexes of Drosophila melanogaster appear to specify the developmental fate of segments of the fly. Some of these genes (Ultrabithorax, Antennapedia and fushi tarazu) share homology due to their conservation of a 'homoeo domain'1,2 consisting of 60 amino acids. Cross-hybridization and cloning experiments show that the homoeo domain is conserved in a frog (Xenopus laevis) gene expressed in early development and may also be present in earthworm, beetle, chicken, mouse and human genomes. The extreme conservation found in the amino acid sequences between the Drosophila and Xenopus domains suggests that the domain has a vital function in the control of early development. Here we report the results of a search made in the Dayhoff sequence bank, which reveals a lesser but apparently significant homology between the homoeo domain and the amino acids coded from parts of the a 1 and alpha 2 mating type genes of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
果蝇双胸复合体和触角足复合体中的同源异型基因似乎决定了果蝇各体节的发育命运。这些基因中的一些（超双胸基因、触角足基因和分节基因）由于其由60个氨基酸组成的“同源异型结构域”的保守性而具有同源性。交叉杂交和克隆实验表明，该同源异型结构域在蛙（非洲爪蟾）早期发育中表达的一个基因中是保守的，并且可能也存在于蚯蚓、甲虫、鸡、小鼠和人类基因组中。果蝇和非洲爪蟾结构域之间氨基酸序列的高度保守性表明，该结构域在早期发育的控制中具有重要功能。在此，我们报告了在戴霍夫序列库中进行搜索的结果，该结果揭示了同源异型结构域与酿酒酵母a1和α2交配型基因部分编码的氨基酸之间存在较低但明显显著的同源性。
