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Genetic Tool Kit
Neil Shubin and Sean Carroll discuss homeobox genes, a set of genes that produce basic body parts in all animals. In 1994, Walter Gehring discovered the eyeless gene, which guides formation of fruit fly eyes. As an experiment, Gehring put a mouse's eyeless gene into a fruit fly, resulting in normal fruit fly eyes. The same holds true for homeobox genes for wings, legs, even heads. This discovery indicates that animals descended from a single common ancestor that passed along to them a set of homeobox genes, used to build a wide variety of forms from just a few basic body plans.

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MicroRNAs bind to messenger RNA (mRNA) in a specific section, called 3'UTR, and are known to regulate them. Parts of the predicted map were confirmed through the development of a novel in vivo method that asked whether the 3' UTR part of mRNAs was driving regulation during development in a living organism. Their research appears in the most recent issue of Current Biology.

In mapping miRNA targets, the research team examined the function of the genome of C. elegans, the first animal species whose genome was completely sequenced and a model organism to study how embryos develop

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Understanding the genetic basis of plant shape is just one of the first outgrowths of research done with microRNAs, tiny bits of genetic material with powerful abilities to control gene "expression." Careful regulation of large sets of genes allows plants to specify which cells turn into leaf, root or other types of cells.

MicroRNAs work like a digital radar system to hone in on target genes. The target gene messenger RNA, which is the critical molecule that communicates normal gene functions, is either destroyed or inactivated through molecular processes that are directed by the microRNA. It is this type of negative regulation, or turning off expression of specific genes, that triggers development of plant parts with the proper shape.

"In this study we've demonstrated the real life consequences of a microRNA, showing how regulated destruction of a set of messenger RNA targets controls the shape of a plant's leaf," said James Carrington, professor and director of the Center for Gene Research and Biotechnology at OSU.

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