Mammalian-Drosophila homeobox

VIII. MAMMALIAN-DROSOPHILA HOMEOBOX GENE EXCHANGES... 

The most dramatic illustration of the evolutionary conservation of homeobox genes comes from experiments that swap Drosophila and mammalian cognates and test for functional equivalence. McGinnis and co-workers have reported remarkable phenotypic similarities in flies that misexpress Drosophila homeobox genes or their mammalian counterparts. Indeed, this ectopic expression assay in Drosophila indicates that the Drosophila and cognate mammalian homeobox proteins are essentially functionally identical. 

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