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Tandem organization of independently duplicated homeobox genes in the basal cnidarian Acropora millepora

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Abstract

A number of examples of independently duplicated regulatory genes have been identified in cnidarians, but the extent of this phenomenon and organization of these duplicated genes are unknown. Here we describe the identification of three pairs of independently duplicated homeobox genes in the anthozoan cnidarian, Acropora millepora. In each case, the pairs of paralogous genes are tightly linked, but the extent of sequence divergence implies that these do not reflect recent duplication events. The phenomenon is likely to be more general, as the examples reported here represent most of the limited number of Acropora homeobox genes for which genomic data are yet available.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Comparative Genomics Centre, Molecular Sciences Building 21, James Cook University, Townsville, Queensland, 4811, Australia

    Nikki R. Hislop, Danielle de Jong & David J. Miller

  2. Centre for the Molecular Genetics of Development and Research School of Biological Sciences, Australian National University, P.O. Box 475, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia

    Nikki R. Hislop, David C. Hayward & Eldon E. Ball

Authors
  1. Nikki R. Hislop
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  2. Danielle de Jong
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  3. David C. Hayward
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  4. Eldon E. Ball
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  5. David J. Miller
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Correspondence to David J. Miller.

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N. Hislop and D. de Jong contributed equally to this work

Edited by M. Akam

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Hislop, N.R., de Jong, D., Hayward, D.C. et al. Tandem organization of independently duplicated homeobox genes in the basal cnidarian Acropora millepora. Dev Genes Evol 215, 268–273 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-005-0468-y

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