Cnidarians are primitive animals located in a basal position in the phylogenetic tree of the Animal Kingdom, as an outgroup of the Bilaterians. Therefore, studies on cnidarian developmental biology may illustrate how fundamental developmental processes have originated and changed during animal evolution. A particular example of this is the establishment of polarity along the body axes, which is...

At the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, the fields of evolutionary and developmental biology were inseparable. Evolutionary biologists used comparative embryology to reconstruct ancestors and phyletic relationships, and embryologists in turn used evolutionary history to explain many of the processes observed during animal development. This close relationship ended a...

Genome sequencing projects have presented the opportunity for analysis of developmental genes in three vector mosquito species: Aedes aegypti, Culex quinquefasciatus, and Anopheles gambiae. A comparative genomic analysis of developmental genes in Drosophila melanogaster and these three important vectors of human disease was performed in this investigation. While the study was comprehensive, spe...

Homeobox genes encode transcription factors which play important roles in the developmental processes of many multicellular organisms. TGIFLX/Y (TGIFLX and TGIFLY) are members of the homeobox superfamily of genes. Their expressions are specifically detected in the human adult testis but their functions are remained to be investigated. In this investigation we cloned full length of TGIFLY cDNA a...

Background: The in vivo radiation-induced bystander effects (RIBE) at the developmental, genetic, and epigenetic levels have been well demonstrated using model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (A. thaliana). However, the mechanisms underlying RIBE in plants are not clear, especially lacking a comprehensive knowledge about the genes and biological pathways involved in the RIBE in plants. Materials and...

Thioredoxins (Trxs) are small ubiquitous disulfide reductases that participate in dithiol-disulfide exchange reactions. In contrast to animals and prokaryotes that typically possess one or a few genes encoding Trxs, higher plants contain eight different Trx types: f, m, x, y, z, o, s, and h. Trx h with multiple forms is involved in different processes such as seed germination, cellular protecti...