Takeuchi Masaki    Department   Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare  ,    Position   Associate Professor
Language	English
Title	The early embryogenesis of Polypterus (Bichirs): insights into the origin and evolution of vertebrate body plans
Conference	RIKEN joint retreat 2011
Conference Type	Nationwide Conferences
Presentation Type	Poster notice
Lecture Type	General
Publisher and common publisher	◎Masaki Takeuchi, Maiko Takahashi, Shinichi Aizawa
Date	2011/01/31
Venue (city and name of the country)	Kakegawa, Japan
Summary	--- As an additional topic, I would like to report about the existence and significance of a homologous bichir gene of siamois/twin, which is the head inducible gene previously found only in amphibian. I named this bichir gene "dioskouroi (dios)" derived from twin gods, Gemini (双子座). In Xenopus embryos, dios have a strong activity of the secondary axis induction as a transcriptional activator similar to siamois. Importantly, dios can rescue the headless phenotype of siamois/twin double knockdown embryos. Dios play a role for the axis organization also in bichir embryos. These results suggest not only that these genes are identified as a functional homolog of each other, but that siamois/dios-related protogene was required for the axis formation in the common ancestor of Osteichthyes.