Ferrier D E, Akam M
Wellcome/Cancer Research Campaign Institute, Cambridge, United Kingdom,
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1996 Nov 12;93(23):13024-9. doi: 10.1073/pnas.93.23.13024.
The conserved organization of the Hox genes throughout the animal kingdom has become one of the major paradigms of evolutionary developmental biology. We have examined the organization of the Hox genes of the grasshopper, Schistocerca gregaria. We find that the grasshopper Hox cluster is over 700 kb long, and is not split into equivalents of the Antennapedia complex and the bithorax complex of Drosophila melanogaster. SgDax and probably also Sgzen, the grasshopper homologues of fushi-tarazu (ftz) and Zerknüllt (zen), respectively, are also in the cluster, showing that the non-homeotic Antp-class genes, "accessory genes," are an ancient feature of insect Hox clusters.
整个动物界中Hox基因保守的组织形式已成为进化发育生物学的主要范例之一。我们研究了蝗虫（沙漠飞蝗）Hox基因的组织形式。我们发现蝗虫的Hox基因簇长度超过700 kb，并且没有像黑腹果蝇那样分裂成触角足复合体和双胸复合体的对应物。分别作为分节基因（ftz）和无节基因（zen）的蝗虫同源基因SgDax以及可能还有Sgzen也在该基因簇中，这表明非同源异型的触角足类基因，即“辅助基因”，是昆虫Hox基因簇的一个古老特征。
