The team of Prof. Denis Duboule of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) reveals how genes architects have evolved into lizards and snakes, respecting the construction plan.
Among reptiles, it is the squamates, or snakes and lizards, which won the Palme d’Or for diversity, with a range of morphologies surprisingly varied. Understand how the “construction plan” of these animals has evolved to the formation of such different organisms is a challenge just to meet a team led by Denis Duboule, director of the NCCR Frontiers in Genetics. In the magazine Nature of March 4, 2010, the researchers show various tricks used to point (Graphic) during evolution in several groups of architects genes, Hox genes. These govern the organization of body structures during embryonic development.
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