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Functional conservation of certain Hox genes

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For many of the mammalian Hox genes, it has been possible to determine that some of them are more similar to one of the insect HOM-C genes than to the others. Describe an experimental approach using the tools of molecular biology that would allow such a determination.

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Solution Summary

This solution discusses the experimental approach used to identify a conservation of a function for a particular gene between different organisms. Specifically, the mammalian Hox genes are compared to those in insects. The solution provides two kinds of experimental approaches used in testing the genes conservation among different species.

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To determine whether a particular gene performs a certain function (and also to test for a functional redundancy), two types of experiments could be done.

The first approach is called a rescue experiment. In this experiment, a mutant animal, in which the function of a gene is compromised (for example by using specific RNAi to knock down gene expression, or by generating a loss of function a mutant during a ...

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