There is abundant evidence to indicate that the homeobox genes are developmentally important. We used the NCBI dbEST databases of early mouse embryos to identify novel homeobox-containing sequence tags. Ohx (oocyte-specific homeobox gene) was one of several genes identified by in silico cloning. The full-length Ohx cDNA was cloned and its genomic organization was characterized. The Ohx gene spa...

Homeobox-containing clones were isolated from a Lambda-ZAP cDNA library derived from somites of 2.5 day old chick embryos. The clones were identified by hybridization to the homeobox-containing Xenopus gene Xhoxl-A (1). Fourteen clones isolated from a screen of 3.3 xlO plaques of an amplified library contain homeobox sequences and some are highly conserved homologues of murine Hox genes. Sequen...

In zebrafish, individual primary motoneurons can be uniquely identified by their characteristic cell body positions and axonal projection patterns. The fate of individual primary motoneurons remains plastic until just prior to axogenesis when they become committed to particular identities. We find that distinct primary motoneurons express particular combinations of LIM homeobox genes. Expressio...

Several Drosophila genes important in the control of embryonic development contain a characteristic sequence of DNA, known as the homeobox. Homeobox sequences are also present in a family of vertebrate genes, which may therefore have regulatory roles during vertebrate embryogenesis. In this article, data concerning the spatial patterns of vertebrate homeobox gene expression are discussed in rel...

A novel homeobox gene, SOHo-1, was isolated from embryonic chicken retina. On embryonic day 2 (E2), SOHo-1 is expressed in the retina, posterolateral otic pit, and neural tube anterior to the spinal cord. On E4, SOHo-1 is expressed at high levels in anterior retina and low levels in posterior retina, suggestive of a role in patterning the anterior-posterior axis. It is also expressed on E4 in t...

The DNA sequence motif ATTTGCAT (octamer) or its inverse complement has been identified as an evolutionarily conserved element in the promoter region of immunoglobulin genes. Two major DNA-binding proteins that bind in a sequence-specific manner to the octamer DNA sequence have been identified in mammalian species--a ubiquitously expressed protein (Oct-1) and a lymphoid-specific protein (Oct-2)...

Homeobox genes have been shown to control the determination of positional, tissue and cellular identity during the development of the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster. Because genes involved in the determination of internal structures derived from neural, mesodermal and endodermal tissues may have been overlooked in conventional genetic screens, we undertook the identification of new homeobox g...

Homeobox containing transcription factors are frequently deregulated in human hematologic malignant diseases either indirectly through an abnormality of an upstream factor, or directly through rearrangement of the gene itself. Study of T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia identified the related non-clustered homeobox transcription factors, TLX1 and TLX3, as frequently ectopically expressed as a ...