The evolution of developmental regulatory pathways.
Evolutionary analysis of the content of developmental regulatory pathways has been advanced by the publication of pairs of complete genome sequences from representative taxonomic groups. Annotation of the fission yeast, rice, and mouse genomes confirms that most regulatory families are shared among eukaryotes but also shows that certain gene families have restricted distributions. Theoretical advances in the past few years include development of the theory of scale-free networks, which provides a new framework in which to consider the connectivity and evolution of regulatory systems, and introduction of algorithms that use comparative data to enhance detection of transcriptional regulatory motifs.
Gibson
Greg
G
Bioinformatic Research Center, Partners II Bldg, Centennial Campus, North Carolina State University, Raleigh North Carolina, 27695-7566, USA. ggibson@unity.ncsu.edu
Honeycutt
Emily
E
D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D005809:Genes, Regulator; D006801:Humans; D010802:Phylogeny