TY - JOUR
T1 - Primitive duplicate hox clusters in the european eel's genome
AU - Henkel, Christiaan V.
AU - Burgerhout, Erik
AU - de Wijze, Daniëlle L.
AU - Dirks, Ron P.
AU - Minegishi, Yuki
AU - Jansen, Hans J.
AU - Spaink, Herman P.
AU - Dufour, Sylvie
AU - Weltzien, Finn Arne
AU - Tsukamoto, Katsumi
AU - van den Thillart, Guido E.E.J.M.
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2012 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2012/2/24
Y1 - 2012/2/24
N2 - The enigmatic life cycle and elongated body of the European eel (Anguilla anguilla L., 1758) have long motivated scientific enquiry. Recently, eel research has gained in urgency, as the population has dwindled to the point of critical endangerment. We have assembled a draft genome in order to facilitate advances in all provinces of eel biology. Here, we use the genome to investigate the eel's complement of the Hox developmental transcription factors. We show that unlike any other teleost fish, the eel retains fully populated, duplicate Hox clusters, which originated at the teleost-specific genome duplication. Using mRNA-sequencing and in situ hybridizations, we demonstrate that all copies are expressed in early embryos. Theories of vertebrate evolution predict that the retention of functional, duplicate Hox genes can give rise to additional developmental complexity, which is not immediately apparent in the adult. However, the key morphological innovation elsewhere in the eel's life history coincides with the evolutionary origin of its Hox repertoire.
AB - The enigmatic life cycle and elongated body of the European eel (Anguilla anguilla L., 1758) have long motivated scientific enquiry. Recently, eel research has gained in urgency, as the population has dwindled to the point of critical endangerment. We have assembled a draft genome in order to facilitate advances in all provinces of eel biology. Here, we use the genome to investigate the eel's complement of the Hox developmental transcription factors. We show that unlike any other teleost fish, the eel retains fully populated, duplicate Hox clusters, which originated at the teleost-specific genome duplication. Using mRNA-sequencing and in situ hybridizations, we demonstrate that all copies are expressed in early embryos. Theories of vertebrate evolution predict that the retention of functional, duplicate Hox genes can give rise to additional developmental complexity, which is not immediately apparent in the adult. However, the key morphological innovation elsewhere in the eel's life history coincides with the evolutionary origin of its Hox repertoire.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0032231
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0032231
M3 - Article
C2 - 22384188
AN - SCOPUS:84857509392
VL - 7
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 2
M1 - e32231
ER -