A screen for the systematic identification of cis-regulatory elements within large (> 100 kb) genomic domains containing Hox genes was performed by using the basal chordate Ciona intestinalis. Randomly generated DNA fragments from bacterial artificial chromosomes containing two clusters of Hox genes were inserted into a vector upstream of a minimal promoter and lacZ reporter… [Read More]

While there has been strong support for Amborella and Nymphaeales ( water lilies) as branching from basal- most nodes in the angiosperm phylogeny, this hypothesis has recently been challenged by phylogenetic analyses of 61 protein- coding genes extracted from the chloroplast genome sequences of Amborella, Nymphaea, and 12 other available land plant chloroplast genomes. These… [Read More]

A new parsimony analysis of 27 complete mitochondrial genomic sequences is conducted to investigate the phylogenetic relationships of plethodontid salamanders. This analysis focuses on the amount of character conflict between phylogenetic trees recovered from newly conducted parsimony searches and the Bayesian and maximum likelihood topology reported by Mueller et al. (2004; PNAS, 101, 13820-13825). Strong… [Read More]

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With the completion of the human genome and the growing number of diverse genomes being sequenced, a new age of evolutionary research is currently taking shape. The myriad of technological breakthroughs in biology that are leading to the unification of broad scientific fields such as molecular biology, biochemistry, physics, mathematics, and computer science are now… [Read More]

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome… [Read More]