THE ROLE OF SOME CONSERVATIVE SEQUENCES IN REGULATORY ELEMENTS 0F Antp-LIKE, HOMEOBOX-CONTAINING GENES OF VERTEBRATES
A.V. Spirov
The Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry,
Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
Journal of Evolutionary Biochemistry and Physiology, [St.-Petersburg], 1996, V.32, No5, P.556-568
SUMMARY
At present, the homeobox genes have been identified in representatives of the main invertebrate and vertebrate taxons. These genes are shown to play the key role in spatial-temporal organisation of the genome expression in ontogenesis. Auto-regulatory and cross-regulatory interactions integrate the homeobox genes into gene networks. We have shown a correlation of the variability of the coding and regulatory regions of vertebrate homeobox genes. Phylogenetic relations of structural and regulatory elements involved in the cross- and auto-regulatory connections were studied in detail. The comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of the promoter region of these genes, as compared with the results of the analysis of their homeoboxes, revealed two opposite tendencies in evolution of regulatory elements of these genes. The first is conservation of a number of regulatory elements in evolution of the vertebrate homeobox genes, while the second, a high variability of the rest of non-coding gene regions.
Keywords: homeobox genes, promoter regions, regulatory elements, phylogenetic analysis.
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