Talk:Hox gene

Making article title plural
I'm a new wikipedia editor working on this article through Wikiscientists! In my training as a developmental geneticist, I rarely hear Hox genes referred to in the singular and I feel strongly that the title of this article should be plural. Does anyone have any objection to changing the title to "Hox genes" ? Thanks, Futuremicrobe (talk) 16:54, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Merging "Homeotic selector genes" page into this page
If anyone could help me finish filling in and correcting the Drosophila Hox gene function section, that would be awesome. I'm pulling it all from this encyclopedic Nature review: "Hox genes and the evolution of the arthropod body plan." Hughes CL, Kaufman TC. Evol Dev. 2002 Nov-Dec;4(6):459-99. Moosepuggle (talk) 02:47, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you
To those few who have greatly improved the article the past few months, thank you for the fascinating information —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.244.107.206 (talk) 20:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Hox genes and Homeotic genes are not synonymous
Hox genes are a form of homeotic gene. A homeotic gene is a gene which codes for mutations which determine how body structure develops into body parts . Meanwhile hox genes are only responsible for the anterior-posterior patterns of limb development and segmentation in Metazoans. 24.114.252.238 (talk) 20:26, 7 November 2008 (UTC)


 * You are very right. I'll try renaming the page to Hox gene, as that and not homeotic genes in general is what its text is about. Narayanese (talk) 20:57, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Page moved - There are some residual double redirects that need cleaning up. —  Tivedshambo   (t/c) 21:10, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I'll do that. Narayanese (talk) 21:53, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Table formatting help
I made a nice table based on a Nature Reviews article. I think it would look better off to the side, with text beside it, and a figure legend, but I am a wiki formatting neophyte and I don't know how to make this happen :(
 * I don't think adding text to the side is a good idea - the table already fills most of the screen unless you maximise the window. As to the content of the table: listing target genes like that gives the feeling that there is a rather limited number of target genes, which is very unlikely to be true: transcription factors tend to have thousands binding sites (e.g. over 10,000 for the homeobox transcription factor Nanog in mouse ES cells), so could regulate a large number of genes (though the text above in the section straightens things out Narayanese (talk) 15:28, 8 August 2009 (UTC)). Help:Table has formatting help btw. A |+ followed by text, placed under the {| line, gives a legend. Narayanese (talk) 21:44, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Missing diagram?
The section "Phylogenetic distribution of Hox genes" reads in part:


 * "The arrows represent Hox genes arrayed along a chromosome. The bottom line represents the ten Hox genes seen in most invertebrates, and is the ancestral complement of the vertebrates. The top four lines represent the four duplicated clusters of these ten genes seen in vertebrates. In order from left to right (anterior to posterior), they are: labial, proboscipedia, zerknullt, Deformed, Sex combs reduced, fushi tarazu, Antennapedia, Ultrabithorax, Abdominal-A and Abdominal B. Arrows with the same color came from the same ancestral gene."

This seems to reference a diagram that has been deleted from the text, but which would seem to be critical to trying to understand what the text is describing. It needs to be replaced, or, if impossible, then this illumination to the way Hox genes operate should regretfully be deleted. SkoreKeep (talk) 15:09, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


 * This smells a bit like wholesale plagiarism to me. This article looks like the source.--Paul (talk) 20:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Opening sentence
This opening sentence needs to be changed:

"Hox genes are a group of related genes that specify the anterior-posterior axis and segment identity of metazoan organisms during early embryonic development."

I graduated with a biology degree and I find this opening sentence to be filled with too much technical jargon. It should be more efficent so that a layman or a college student can understand what the definition of a hox gene is before getting lost with the jargon that explains finite details.

Dictionary.com defines hox genes as:

"any of a class of genes that determines the basic structure and orientation of an organism."

The dictionary.com definition explains it clearly without getting into technical jargon. The current opening sentence here on wiki needs to be streamlined. Darwin&#39;s Bulldog (talk) 23:48, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

History Section needs major work
The history is in need of major work it is important and it is just 1-2 paragraphs. I am prepared to work on it if anyone knows any good websites or references I could check out.--Ollyoxenfree (talk) 21:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I just noticed that the History section had a link to "Mendel" the sir name instead of directly to the article on Gregor Mendel. I went ahead and updated that.  I am studying a little on genetics for unrelated purposes, so if I see something obvious I will try to fix it. :-) Emry (talk) 21:05, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Origin of "hox"
Am I correct in guessing that the name "hox" is a shortened form of "homeobox?" Hellbus (talk) 01:32, 9 November 2012 (UTC)
 * Maybe not. The difference between homeobox and Hox genes seems to suggest the Hox genes were known before the homeobox was identified. Hox_gene says the Hox genes were identified in the 1940s but the homeobox was discovered in 1983. No clue as to where the name Hox came from. - Rod57 (talk) 06:58, 23 April 2013 (UTC)


 * The homeobox refers to the 180bp piece of DNA that codes for the 60 amino acid homeodomain part of the Hox protein. I think Hox is shortened from homeotic, and the "x" suffix I've seen on many transcription factor names, like Sox, Tbx, and Pitx. Some of them seem to be homeodomain-type proteins, but not all? See this article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9655805 Moosepuggle (talk) 01:01, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 18:21, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Clarification please.
Near the end of the section titled Classification of Hox Proteins, the text says "species. The approach" should that read "This approach"?

Thank you.

Michael Sarles — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.0.30.217 (talk) 19:27, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Why craniocaudal?
In several species it's the antero-posterior axis that is involucred with hox genes and not called craniocaudal.

Diego Jp 190.163.127.50 (talk) 02:15, 8 November 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.163.127.50 (talk) 02:09, 8 November 2017 (UTC)


 * It's generally the axis from head to tail. In an animal that crawls or walks on 4 or more legs, that is also the axis from front to back (see the diagrams in the article). In humans, the axes are different, but the hox genes work on the head to tail (craniocaudal) axis all the same. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:29, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

The split clusters of flies
Hello, thank you for the great page about Hox genes! I wanted to mention a little imprecision on the scheme "Homeobox (Hox) gene expression in Drosophila melanogaster". It seems there that the fly has a single cluster, the breakpoint is not annotated. It seems a very small detail but I think it is important, when considering the evolution of Hox clusters, that flies do not have an intact cluster. Best, Running sardine (talk) 09:40, 16 June 2021 (UTC)