DOI: 10.1101/gad.10.2.176. Rescue of Drosophila labial null mutant by the chicken ortholog Hoxb-1 demonstrates that the function of Hox genes is phylogenetically conserved.

Rescue of Drosophila labial null mutant by the chicken ortholog Hoxb-1 demonstrates that the function of Hox genes is phylogenetically conserved.

10.1101/gad.10.2.176

Crossref journal-article

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Genes & Development (246)

Abstract

Hox complexes are important players in the establishment of the body plan of invertebrates and vertebrates. Sequence comparison demonstrates a remarkable phylogenetic conservation of key structural features of Hox genes. The correlation between the physical order of genes along the chromosomes and their domains of function along the body axis is conserved between arthropods and vertebrates. Ectopic expression experiments suggest that the functions of homeo proteins also are conserved between invertebrates and vertebrates. However, it remains an open question whether vertebrate Hox genes expressed under the control of Drosophila regulatory sequences can substitute the function of Drosophila Hox genes. We have studied this issue with the Drosophila labial (lab) gene and its chicken ortholog gHoxb-1. We fused the entire protein-coding region of gHoxb-1 with previously identified regulatory sequences of lab. This approach places gHoxb-1 into the normal embryonic spatiotemporal context in which lab acts. Ten transgenic lines carrying gHoxb-1 were established and tested for their ability to rescue lab null mutant animals. Eight lines rescued with high efficiency, embryonic lethality, and abnormal head morphogenesis, two defects observed in lab null mutant embryos. The rescue with the gHoxb-1 minigene was close to the efficiency of that obtained with the Drosophila lab minigene. This indicates that gHoxb-1 protein can regulate lab target genes and thereby restore embryonic viability. This is striking, as Lab and gHoxb-1 proteins are divergent except for their homeo domains and a short stretch of amino acids amino-terminal to the homeo domain. Our findings demonstrate a functional conservation of the lab class homeo proteins between insects and vertebrates and support the view that function of Hox genes resides in relatively few conserved motifs and largely in the homeo domain.

Bibliography

Lutz, B., Lu, H. C., Eichele, G., Miller, D., & Kaufman, T. C. (1996). Rescue of Drosophila labial null mutant by the chicken ortholog Hoxb-1 demonstrates that the function of Hox genes is phylogenetically conserved. Genes & Development, 10(2), 176â184.

Authors 5

B Lutz (first)
H C Lu (additional)
G Eichele (additional)
D Miller (additional)
T C Kaufman (additional)

References 45 Referenced 54

10.1038/358341a0
10.1002/j.1460-2075.1987.tb02603.x / EMBO J. / Hox 1.6: A mouse homeobox-containing gene member of the Hox-1 complex. (1987)
10.1006/jmbi.1993.1661
Bürglin, T.R. 1994. A comprehensive classification of homeobox genes. In Guidebook to the homeobox genes (ed. D. Duboule), pp. 25–71. Sambrook & Tooze Publication at Oxford University Press Inc., New York, NY. (10.1093/oso/9780198599395.003.0003)
Campos-Ortega, J. and V. Hartenstein. 1985. The embryonic development of Drosophila melanogaster. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany. (10.1007/978-3-662-02454-6)
10.1016/0092-8674(94)90111-2
10.1038/376479a0
10.1016/0092-8674(94)90525-8
10.1101/gad.9.6.663
10.1242/dev.113.4.1267 / Development / Control of expression of the homeotic labial (lab) locus of Drosophila melanogaster: Evidence for both positive and negative autogenous regulation. (1991)
10.1016/0092-8674(86)90784-1
10.1101/gad.3.3.399
Duboule, D. 1994. Guidebook to the homeobox genes. Sambrook & Tooze Publications at Oxford University Press Inc., New York, NY.
10.1242/dev.121.4.957 / Development / Evolutionary-conserved enhancers direct region-specific expression of the murine Hoxa-1 and Hoxa-2 loci in both mice and Drosophila. (1995)
10.1016/0925-4773(92)90038-L
10.1242/dev.110.2.589 / Development / Isolation of the mouse Hox-2.9 gene; analysis of embryonic expression suggests that positional information along the anterior-posterior axis is specified by mesoderm. (1990)
10.1146/annurev.bi.63.070194.002415
10.1002/jmor.1050880104
10.1016/0092-8674(94)90508-8
10.1073/pnas.92.3.739
10.1016/0092-8674(94)90290-9
{'key': '2021111418275257000_10.2.176.22', 'first-page': '3906', 'article-title': 'Early retinoic acid-induced F9 teratocarcinoma stem cell gene ERA-1: Alternate splicing creates transcripts for a homeobox-containing protein and one lacking a homeobox.', 'volume': '8', 'year': '1988', 'journal-title': 'Mol. Cell. Biol.'} / Mol. Cell. Biol. / Early retinoic acid-induced F9 teratocarcinoma stem cell gene ERA-1: Alternate splicing creates transcripts for a homeobox-containing protein and one lacking a homeobox. (1988)
Mahaffey, J.W. and T.C. Kaufman. 1987a. The homeotic genes of the Antennapedia complex and bithorax complex of Drosophila melanogaster. In Developmental genetics of higher organisms (ed. G.M. Malacinski), pp. 329–360. Macmillan, New York, NY.
10.1093/genetics/117.1.51 / Genetics / Distribution of the Sex combs reduced gene products in Drosophila melanogaster. (1987)
10.1016/0092-8674(90)90499-5
10.1038/358345a0
10.1016/0925-4773(93)90003-G
10.1016/0092-8674(92)90471-N
10.1038/308428a0
10.1016/0092-8674(90)90500-E
10.1016/0012-1606(89)90187-5
10.1242/dev.111.1.61 / Development / Expression of the mouse labial-like homeobox-containing genes, Hox 2.9 and Hox 1.6, during segmentation of the hindbrain. (1991)
10.1073/pnas.92.2.387
10.1210/en.134.6.2336
10.1016/S0092-8674(05)80008-X
10.1093/genetics/118.3.461 / Genetics / A stable genomic source of P-element transposase in Drosophila melanogaster. (1988)
10.1146/annurev.ge.28.120194.002231
Sambrook, J., E. Fritsch, and T. Maniatis. 1989. Molecular cloning: A laboratory manual. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY.
10.1073/pnas.81.13.4115
10.1073/pnas.83.3.735
10.1101/gad.4.8.1267
10.1242/dev.108.1.47 / Development / Region-specific expression in early chick and mouse embryos of Ghox-lab and Hox 1.6, vertebrate homeobox-containing genes related to Drosophila labial. (1990)
10.1242/dev.116.2.447 / Development / Induction of labial expression in the Drosophila endoderm: Response elements for dpp signalling and for autoregulation. (1992)
{'key': '2021111418275257000_10.2.176.44', 'first-page': '160', 'article-title': 'Optical clean and permanent whole mount preparation for phase-contrast microscopy of cuticular structures of insect larvae.', 'volume': '52', 'year': '1977', 'journal-title': 'Drosphila Inf. Serv.'} / Drosphila Inf. Serv. / Optical clean and permanent whole mount preparation for phase-contrast microscopy of cuticular structures of insect larvae. (1977)
10.1101/gad.7.3.343

Dates

Type	When
Created	18 years, 3 months ago (June 5, 2007, 5:15 p.m.)
Deposited	1 year, 6 months ago (Feb. 14, 2024, 4:27 p.m.)
Indexed	2 months ago (July 7, 2025, 8:26 a.m.)
Issued	29 years, 7 months ago (Jan. 15, 1996)
Published	29 years, 7 months ago (Jan. 15, 1996)
Published Online	29 years, 7 months ago (Jan. 15, 1996)
Published Print	29 years, 7 months ago (Jan. 15, 1996)

Funders 0

None

BibTeX

@article{Lutz_1996, title={Rescue of Drosophila labial null mutant by the chicken ortholog Hoxb-1 demonstrates that the function of Hox genes is phylogenetically conserved.}, volume={10}, ISSN={1549-5477}, url={http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/gad.10.2.176}, DOI={10.1101/gad.10.2.176}, number={2}, journal={Genes & Development}, publisher={Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory}, author={Lutz, B and Lu, H C and Eichele, G and Miller, D and Kaufman, T C}, year={1996}, month=jan, pages={176–184} }

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