utenzi

There's an interesting article on Sonic Hedgehog in the January 18 issue of Nature . I'm used to seeing this gene mentioned when discussing mammalian function or development but not fish--although the article refers to cartilaginous fish only. While both humans and cartilaginous fish are vertebrates we diverged so long ago from the chondricthylans that it's easy to forget that we still share quite a few genes. One of those genes is Shh, commonly referred to as Sonic Hedgehog , pictured over there to the left. Shh, in mammals, encodes a signaling molecule that plays a central role in developmental patterning, especially of the nervous system and the skeletal system. It's highly conserved and mutations in the gene result in serious maladies such as holoprosencephaly type 3. I'm familiar with Sonic Hedgehog due to its being implicated in causing tumors and thus of interest to cancer investigators. Getting back to the article in Nature, it demonstrates how Shh is conse...