Pax: a murine multigene family of paired box-containing genes.
A murine multigene family has been identified that shares a conserved sequence motif, the paired box, with developmental control and tissue-specific genes of Drosophila. To date five murine paired box-containing genes (Pax genes) have been described and one, Pax-1, has been associated with the developmental mutant phenotype undulated. Here we describe the paired boxes of three novel Pax genes, Pax-4, Pax-5, and Pax-6. Comparison of the eight murine paired domains of the mouse, the five Drosophila paired domains, and the three human paired domains shows that they fall into six distinct classes: class I comprises Pox meso, Pax-1, and HuP48; class II paired, gooseberry-proximal, gooseberry-distal, Pax-3, Pax-7, HuP1, and HuP2; class III Pax-2, Pax-5, and Pax-8; class IV Pax-4; class V Pox neuro; and class VI Pax-6. Pax-1 and the human gene HuP48 have identical paired domains, as do Pax-3 and HuP2 as well as Pax-7 and HuP1, and are likely to represent homologous genes in mouse and man. Identical intron-exon structure and extensive sequence homology of their paired boxes suggest that several Pax genes represent paralogs. The chromosomal location of all novel Pax genes and of Pax-3 and Pax-7 has been determined and reveals that they are not clustered.
Department of Molecular Cell Biology, Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Federal Republic of Germany.
C
C
Walther
J L
JL
Guenet
D
D
Simon
U
U
Deutsch
B
B
Jostes
M D
MD
Goulding
D
D
Plachov
R
R
Balling
P
P
Gruss
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001483:Base Sequence; D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D003001:Cloning, Molecular; D003433:Crosses, Genetic; D015342:DNA Probes; D004330:Drosophila / Q000235:genetics; D005809:Genes, Regulator / Q000235:genetics*; D006239:Haplotypes; D051379:Mice / Q000235:genetics; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D005810:Multigene Family / Q000235:genetics; D012150:Polymorphism, Restriction Fragment Length; D016364:Reading Frames; D016415:Sequence Alignment
D015342:DNA Probes