Tag Archives: Ubx

Origin of Helmets in Treehoppers: A beautiful example of evolution at work

By | May 3, 2021

Two developmental biologists Nicholas Gompel and Benjamin Prudhomme, when they were together at the Institute of Developmental Biology of Marseilles-Luminy in France, have unraveled the origin and evolution of helmets in treehoppers. This means these hemipterans have achieved what no other insect was able to in more than 300 million years of evolution : a third… Read More »

Hox gene Ultrabithorax is required for wing formation in Tribolium (beetles)

By | April 20, 2021

Do you know that Beetles account for around 25% of all known life-forms on this planet. They belong to the order Coleoptera, which happens to be the largest and most diverse order, not only in the insect class, but in the entire animal kingdom. It is believed that there are eight times as many beetle… Read More »

How a single Hox gene (Ultrabithorax) can specify two different morphologies ?

By | April 20, 2021

Bithorax complex in Drosophila consists of three homeodomain encoding proteins : Ultrabithorax (Ubx), abdominal-A (abd-A) and Abdominal-B (Abd-B). The function of these bithorax genes is to pattern entire abdomen ( A1-A9 segments ) and a part of third thoracic segment ,which happens to be their normal expression domain in embryos. These Hox proteins are expressed… Read More »