EVG, the remnants of a primordial bilaterian's synteny of functionally unrelated genes.

Extant genomes are the result of repeated duplications and subsequent divergence of primordial genes that assembled the genomes of the first living beings. Increased information on genome maps of different species is revealing conserved syntenies among different vertebrate taxa, which allow to trace back the history of current chromosomes. However, inferring neighboring relationships between genes of more primitive genomes has proven to be very difficult.

Functional domains of FOXJ2.

FOXJ2 is a fork head transcriptional activator, the expression of which starts very early in embryonic development and it is distributed widely in the adult. Here, we describe the characterization of domains that are important for its function. FOXJ2 is localized constitutively at the nucleus of the cell.

DmFoxF, a novel Drosophila fork head factor expressed in visceral mesoderm.

DmFoxF is a novel Drosophila fork head domain factor, which is expressed in the visceral mesoderm of the embryo. Our data suggest that DmFoxF is the fly orthologue of the vertebrates FOXF1 and FOXF2 transcription factors. DmFoxF shares homology with FOXF1 and FOXF2 in its fork head domain, and it is able to specifically bind DNA sequences recognized by these vertebrate fork head factors.