Brachyury gene Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Brachyury gene - Essay Example The nature of Brachury proteins explain the gut and posterior mesoderm characteristics of the kingdom animalia (Evans et al. 2012); that is, homogenous and heterogeneous animals. In cases where the Brachyury proteins fail to express themselves in the gut and posterior mesoderm, it means that those animals lost these T domain genes in the process of evolution. Brachyury proteins of the T domain are found in ascidians, cephalochordates, and hemichordates. Since they belong to the T domain, this gives DNA binding characteristic to the Brachyury proteins. According to Beddington, Rashbass and Wilson (1992: 159), the nature of the well known mouse mutant, Brachyury (T) in cloned mouse is revealed by its sequence, which is â€Å"an open reading frame of 436 amino acids†. In the blastocyst stage embryo, this T gene is present in the inner cell mass, which is then followed by the primordial stripe. Brachyury proteins can also be considered as transcriptional activators, because they h ave the ability to get attached to a 24-bp palindromic target sequence (Brody 1997, par. 24). Beddington, R.S.P., Rashbass, P., & Wilson, V., 1992. Brachyury - a gene affecting mouse gastrulation and early organogenesis. Devclopmcni 1992 Supplement. [Online] Available at [Accessed 20 April 2013] Evans, A.L., Faial, T., Gilchrist, M.J., Down, T., Vallier, L., et al., 2012. Genomic targets of Brachyury (T) in differentiating mouse embryonic stem cells. PLoS ONE, vol.7, no.3, p. e33346. [Online] Available at [Accessed 19 April