Isolation of Hox Cluster Genes from Insects Reveals an Accelerated Sequence Evolution Rate

Among gene families it is the Hox genes and among metazoan animals it is the insects (Hexapoda) that have attracted particular attention for studying the evolution of development. Surprisingly though, no Hox genes have been isolated from 26 out of 35 insect orders yet, and the existing sequences derive mainly from only two orders (61% from Hymenoptera and 22% from Diptera). We have designed insect specific primers and isolated 37 new partial homeobox sequences of Hox cluster genes (lab, pb, Hox3, ftz, Antp, Scr, abd-a, Abd-B, Dfd, and Ubx) from six insect orders, which are crucial to insect phylogenetics. These new gene sequences provide a first step towards comparative Hox gene studies in insects. Furthermore, comparative distance analyses of homeobox sequences reveal a correlation between gene divergence rate and species radiation success with insects showing the highest rate of homeobox sequence evolution.

• Publication year

  2012

• Venue

  PLoS ONE

• Publication date

  2012-06-07

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0034682PMID 22685537PMCID 3369913
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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