Current Biology
Volume 11, Issue 10, 15 May 2001, Pages 759-763
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Brief communication
Hox genes and the phylogeny of the arthropods

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Abstract

The arthropods are the most speciose, and among the most morphologically diverse, of the animal phyla. Their evolution has been the subject of intense research for well over a century, yet the relationships among the four extant arthropod subphyla — chelicerates, crustaceans, hexapods, and myriapods — are still not fully resolved. Morphological taxonomies have often placed hexapods and myriapods together (the Atelocerata) 1, 2, but recent molecular studies have generally supported a hexapod/crustacean clade 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. A cluster of regulatory genes, the Hox genes, control segment identity in arthropods, and comparisons of the sequences and functions of Hox genes can reveal evolutionary relationships [10]. We used Hox gene sequences from a range of arthropod taxa, including new data from a basal hexapod and a myriapod, to estimate a phylogeny of the arthropods. Our data support the hypothesis that insects and crustaceans form a single clade within the arthropods to the exclusion of myriapods. They also suggest that myriapods are more closely allied to the chelicerates than to this insect/crustacean clade.

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