Abstract
Orthologs of the Drosophila gap gene hunchback have been isolated so far only in protostomes. Phylogenetic analysis of recently available genomic data allowed us to confirm that hunchback genes are widely found in protostomes (both lophotrochozoans and ecdysozoans). In contrast, no unequivocal hunchback gene can be found in the genomes of deuterostomes and non-bilaterians. We cloned hunchback in the marine polychaete annelid Platynereis dumerilii and analysed its expression during development. In this species, hunchback displays an expression pattern indicative of a role in mesoderm formation and neurogenesis, and similar to the expression found for hunchback genes in arthropods. These data suggest altogether that these functions are ancestral to protostomes.
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Acknowledgments
This work has been supported by the CNRS and the Ministère Français de la Recherche through its ACI ‘Jeunes chercheurs et jeunes chercheuses’ and ACI ‘Biologie et Physiologie du développement’ (to M.V.). F.Z.G. was financially supported during her Ph.D. thesis by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). P.K. holds a ‘Bourse pour Docteur-Ingénieur’ from the CNRS. V.L. was supported by the Belgian Science Policy.
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Communicated by D.A. Weisblat
Pierre Kerner and Fabiola Zelada González contributed equally to this work.
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Kerner, P., Zelada González, F., Le Gouar, M. et al. The expression of a hunchback ortholog in the polychaete annelid Platynereis dumerilii suggests an ancestral role in mesoderm development and neurogenesis. Dev Genes Evol 216, 821–828 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-006-0100-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-006-0100-9