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Development

Hox proteins reach out round DNA

Nature volume 397, pages 649–651 (1999)Cite this article

It might be misquoted of Hox genes that “in the field of development, never was so much owed by so many tissues to so few genes”. All animals have Hox genes, and the multifarious roles of Hox proteins in building vital organs such as brain, muscle, bone and gut endow them with honorary status among the transcription factors, both in controlling the fates of different cells and in arranging them into working structures. Valuable insights into how Hox proteins work are offered by two new papers, one by Passner et al.1 on page 714 of this issue and the other by Piper et al.2 in last week's Cell, which each describe the structure of a Hox protein on its DNA-binding site in combination with a cofactor protein.

Over a century ago, Bateson3 described homeotic transformations as a change in one body part into the likeness of another, broad-mindedly including misplaced insect appendages and transformations of mammalian vertebrae. The vertebrae pattern switches were both anterior to posterior and vice versa, which are the sorts of changes that are now known to be caused by ectopic or by reduced Hox gene function.

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  1. the Departments of Developmental Biology and Genetics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, 94305, California, USA

    Matthew P. Scott

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Scott, M. Hox proteins reach out round DNA. Nature 397, 649–651 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/17685

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