Colinear HOX expression during hindbrain and spinal cord development diversifies and assigns regional neural phenotypes to discrete rhombomeric and vertebral domains. Despite the precision of HOX patterning in vivo, in vitro approaches for differentiating human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) to posterior neural fates coarsely pattern HOX expression thereby generating cultures broadly specified ...

Hox genes encode homeodomain transcription factors that control morphogenesis and have established functions in development and evolution. Hox proteins have remained enigmatic with regard to the molecular mechanisms that endow them with specific and diverse functions, and to the cellular functions that they control. Here, we review recent examples of Hox-controlled cellular functions that highl...

The deregulation of homeobox (HOX) genes in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and the potential for these master regulators to perturb normal hematopoiesis is well established. To date, overexpression of HOX genes in AML has been attributed to specific chromosomal aberrations and abnormalities involving mixed-lineage leukemia (MLL), an upstream regulator of HOX genes. The finding reported in this is...

PURPOSE HOX genes are vital for all aspects of mammalian growth and differentiation, and recent data have shown that their deregulated expression is related to carcinogenesis. To date, there has been no systemic study on expression of HOX genes in esophageal carcinoma. We investigated the expression pattern of 39 known HOX genes in cancerous and noncancerous tissue from 36 patients with esophag...

In higher vertebrates, the formation of the body axis proceeds in a craniocaudal direction during gastrulation. Cell biological evidence suggests that mesoderm formation and specification of axial positions occur simultaneously. Exposure of gastrulating embryos to retinoic acid induces changes in axial patterns, e.g. anterior and posterior homeotic transformations of vertebrae. These morphologi...

Early in Drosophila embryogenesis, transcriptional repressors encoded by Gap genes prevent the expression of particular combinations of Hox genes in each segment. During subsequent development, those Hox genes that were initially repressed in each segment remain off in all the descendent cells, even though the Gap repressors are no longer present. This phenomenon of heritable silencing depends ...

In leukemogenesis, several genetic changes conferring a proliferative and/or survival advantage to hematopoietic progenitor cells in addition to a block in differentiation are required. Here, we demonstrate that overexpression of the wild-type (wt) Flt3 receptor tyrosine kinase collaborates with NUP98-HOX fusions (NUP98-HOXA10 and NUP98-HOXD13) to induce aggressive acute myeloid leukemia (AML)....

In this study we have examined the expression of murine Hox homeobox containing genes by in situ hybridisation in the branchial region of the head. Genes from the Hox complexes display segmentally restricted domains of expression in the developing hindbrain, which are correlated with similar restricted domains in the neural crest and surface ectoderm of the branchial arches. Comparison of relat...

Hox gene products are key players in establishing positional identity along the anteroposterior (AP) axis. In vertebrates, gain or loss of Hox expression along the AP axis often leads to inappropriate morphogenesis, typically manifesting as homeotic transformations that affect the vertebrae and/or hindbrain. Various signalling pathways are known to impact on Hox expression, including the retino...

BACKGROUND Hox genes were critical to many morphological innovations of bilaterian animals. However, early Hox evolution remains obscure. Phylogenetic, developmental, and genomic analyses on the cnidarian sea anemone Nematostella vectensis challenge recent claims that the Hox code is a bilaterian invention and that no "true" Hox genes exist in the phylum Cnidaria. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDIN...