PUBLICATION
Hox genes control homocercal caudal fin development and evolution
- Authors
- Cumplido, N., Arratia, G., Desvignes, T., Muñoz-Sánchez, S., Postlethwait, J.H., Allende, M.L.
- ID
- ZDB-PUB-240120-4
- Date
- 2024
- Source
- Science advances 10: eadj5991eadj5991 (Journal)
- Registered Authors
- Allende, Miguel L., Desvignes, Thomas, Postlethwait, John H.
- Keywords
- none
- MeSH Terms
-
- Animal Fins
- Animals
- Biological Evolution*
- Genes, Homeobox
- Spine
- Zebrafish*/genetics
- PubMed
- 38241378 Full text @ Sci Adv
Citation
Cumplido, N., Arratia, G., Desvignes, T., Muñoz-Sánchez, S., Postlethwait, J.H., Allende, M.L. (2024) Hox genes control homocercal caudal fin development and evolution. Science advances. 10:eadj5991eadj5991.
Abstract
Ancient bony fishes had heterocercal tails, like modern sharks and sturgeons, with asymmetric caudal fins and a vertebral column extending into an elongated upper lobe. Teleost fishes, in contrast, developed a homocercal tail characterized by two separate equal-sized fin lobes and the body axis not extending into the caudal fin. A similar heterocercal-to-homocercal transition occurs during teleost ontogeny, although the underlying genetic and developmental mechanisms for either transition remain unresolved. Here, we investigated the role of hox13 genes in caudal fin formation as these genes control posterior identity in animals. Analysis of expression profiles of zebrafish hox13 paralogs and phenotypes of CRISPR/Cas9-induced mutants showed that double hoxb13a and hoxc13a mutants fail to form a caudal fin. Furthermore, single mutants display heterocercal-like morphologies not seen since Mesozoic fossil teleosteomorphs. Relaxation of functional constraints after the teleost genome duplication may have allowed hox13 duplicates to neo- or subfunctionalize, ultimately contributing to the evolution of a homocercal tail in teleost fishes.
Genes / Markers
Expression
Phenotype
Mutations / Transgenics
Human Disease / Model
Sequence Targeting Reagents
Fish
Orthology
Engineered Foreign Genes
Mapping