How the genotype translates into the phenotype through development is critical to fully understand the evolution of phenotypes. We propose a novel approach to directly assess how changes in gene expression patterns are associated with changes in morphology using the limb as a case example. Our method combines molecular biology techniques, such as whole-mount in situ hybridization, with image an...

Morphoregulator genes like members of the Hox gene family regulate uterine development and are associated with endocrine-related processes such as endometrial proliferation and differentiation in the adult uterus. Exposure to neonatal endocrine disruptors could affect signaling events governed by Hox genes, altering the developmental trajectory of the uterus with lasting consequences. We invest...

The article by Kosaki et al. (p. 50) illustrates the power of the ever-expanding DNA sequence databases in greatly accelerating the development of tools for genomic mutation discovery. In this case the authors have developed coding sequence PCR primer sets for a large, highly conserved group of transcription factors, the HOX genes, whose full mutation spectrum in humans has not been elucidated....