Abstract
This chapter discusses some aspects of the mammalian Hox gene family and mentions the results obtained with other animals, such as birds or amphibians. The first vertebrate homeobox-containing genes were isolated concomitantly in Xenopus and mouse after screening with probes derived from the Drosophila Antennupedia (Antp) and fushi tarazu (ftz) homeoboxes. As the homeobox was discovered during the cloning of insect homeotic genes, the first vertebrate genes isolated shown to encode homeodomain proteins were members of the Hox family—that is, genes containing a homeobox sequence related to that present in insect homeotics. Most of the information about the interactions between peptide growth factors, retinoids, and Hox genes during primary axis formation comes from the Xenopus embryo. In this system, peptide growth factors are able to induce regionally specified mesoderm from cultured blastula animal caps. Drosophila homeotic gene products are DNA sequence-specific transcription factors. So far, no available mouse mutant strain has been described to exhibit a pheno-type linked to alterations in a Hoxgene.
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