| First Author | Davidson D | Year | 1988 |
| Journal | Mouse News Lett | Volume | 82 |
| Pages | 102 | Mgi Jnum | J:14222 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:62395 | Citation | Davidson D, et al. (1988) Homeobox expression in the developing mouse. Mouse News Lett 82:102 |
| abstractText | Full text of MNL contribution: Recent advances in the area of Drosophila developmental genetics have been instrumental in establishing inroads into the less accessible studies of mammalian development. Isolation of Drosophila homeotic and segmentation genes and the realization that many of these genes contain an evolutionarily conserved stretch of DNA coding for what is called the homeo box have led to the development of probes which have been directly applicable to the isolation of embryonic specific genes in the mouse. Using the Drosophila genes we have isolated several different homeobox containing genes in the mouse. We have isolated cDNAs for the two genes which are homologous to the engrailed family of genes in Drosophila. The pattern of expression of these two genes in mouse embryos will be discussed. Another gene we have isolated shows a low degree of similarity to Drosophila ftz homeobox (less than 50% at the nucleotide level) and based on several criteria appears to represent a new family of homeobox in mouse. Within this family we have found that there are at least three and probably more members. Two different cDNAs from this family have been sequenced and show 98% similarity at the protein level within the homeobox, in addition these two genes show extensive similarity outside this region. The homeobox is also homologous to a Drosophila homeobox from a gene expressed in the muscle. It may therefore be of interest that we detect expression of at least one family member in the developing mesoderm. Further studies on the expression of these genes will be discussed. |
