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Evolutionary Constraints Favor a Biophysical Model Explaining Hox Gene Collinearity

The Hox gene collinearity enigma has often been approached using models based on biomolecular mechanisms. The biophysical model is an alternative approach based on the hypothesis that collinearity is caused by physical forces pulling the Hox genes from a territory where they are inactive to a distin...

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Autores principales: Almirantis, Yannis, Provata, Astero, Papageorgiou, Spyros
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Bentham Science Publishers 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3731818/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24294108
http://dx.doi.org/10.2174/13892029113149990003
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author Almirantis, Yannis
Provata, Astero
Papageorgiou, Spyros
author_facet Almirantis, Yannis
Provata, Astero
Papageorgiou, Spyros
author_sort Almirantis, Yannis
collection PubMed
description The Hox gene collinearity enigma has often been approached using models based on biomolecular mechanisms. The biophysical model is an alternative approach based on the hypothesis that collinearity is caused by physical forces pulling the Hox genes from a territory where they are inactive to a distinct spatial domain where they are activated in a step by step manner. Such Hox gene translocations have recently been observed in support of the biophysical model. Genetic engineering experiments, performed on embryonic mice, gave rise to several unexpected mutant expressions that the biomolecular models cannot predict. On the contrary, the biophysical model offers convincing explanation. Evolutionary constraints consolidate the Hox clusters and as a result, denser and well organized clusters may create more efficient physical forces and a more emphatic manifestation of gene collinearity. This is demonstrated by stochastic modeling with white noise perturbing the expression of Hox genes. As study cases the genomes of mouse and amphioxus are used. The results support the working hypothesis that vertebrates have adopted their comparably more compact Hox clustering as a tool needed to develop more complex body structures. Several experiments are proposed in order to test further the physical forces hypothesis.
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spelling pubmed-37318182013-12-01 Evolutionary Constraints Favor a Biophysical Model Explaining Hox Gene Collinearity Almirantis, Yannis Provata, Astero Papageorgiou, Spyros Curr Genomics Article The Hox gene collinearity enigma has often been approached using models based on biomolecular mechanisms. The biophysical model is an alternative approach based on the hypothesis that collinearity is caused by physical forces pulling the Hox genes from a territory where they are inactive to a distinct spatial domain where they are activated in a step by step manner. Such Hox gene translocations have recently been observed in support of the biophysical model. Genetic engineering experiments, performed on embryonic mice, gave rise to several unexpected mutant expressions that the biomolecular models cannot predict. On the contrary, the biophysical model offers convincing explanation. Evolutionary constraints consolidate the Hox clusters and as a result, denser and well organized clusters may create more efficient physical forces and a more emphatic manifestation of gene collinearity. This is demonstrated by stochastic modeling with white noise perturbing the expression of Hox genes. As study cases the genomes of mouse and amphioxus are used. The results support the working hypothesis that vertebrates have adopted their comparably more compact Hox clustering as a tool needed to develop more complex body structures. Several experiments are proposed in order to test further the physical forces hypothesis. Bentham Science Publishers 2013-06 2013-06 /pmc/articles/PMC3731818/ /pubmed/24294108 http://dx.doi.org/10.2174/13892029113149990003 Text en © 2013 Bentham Science Publishers http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/), which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Article
Almirantis, Yannis
Provata, Astero
Papageorgiou, Spyros
Evolutionary Constraints Favor a Biophysical Model Explaining Hox Gene Collinearity
title Evolutionary Constraints Favor a Biophysical Model Explaining Hox Gene Collinearity
title_full Evolutionary Constraints Favor a Biophysical Model Explaining Hox Gene Collinearity
title_fullStr Evolutionary Constraints Favor a Biophysical Model Explaining Hox Gene Collinearity
title_full_unstemmed Evolutionary Constraints Favor a Biophysical Model Explaining Hox Gene Collinearity
title_short Evolutionary Constraints Favor a Biophysical Model Explaining Hox Gene Collinearity
title_sort evolutionary constraints favor a biophysical model explaining hox gene collinearity
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3731818/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24294108
http://dx.doi.org/10.2174/13892029113149990003
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