The gene found by Mildred Hoge in the early 1900s and studied by Walter Gehring in flies. Pax 6 switches on eye formation in all animals with the complex vertebrate style eye.
"Eyeless" gene (Pax 6) Quotes in Your Inner Fish
The Your Inner Fish quotes below are all either spoken by "Eyeless" gene (Pax 6) or refer to "Eyeless" gene (Pax 6). For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 9
Quotes
Gehring's lab found they could use the mouse gene to trigger the formation of an extra fly eye anywhere: on the back, on a wing, near the mouth. What Gehring had found was a master switch for eye development that was virtually the same in a mouse and a fly. This gene, Pax 6, initiated a complex chain reaction of gene activity that ultimately led to a new fly eye.
Related Characters:
Neil Shubin (speaker), Walter Gehring
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10
Quotes
Jellyfish do not have either Pax 6 or Pax 2: they arose before those genes hit the scene. But in the box jellyfish's genes we see something remarkable. The gene that forms the eyes is not Pax 6, as we'd expect, but a sort of mosaic that has the structure of both Pax 6 and Pax 2. In other words, this gene looks like a primitive version of other animals' Pax 6 and Pax 2.
Related Characters:
Neil Shubin (speaker)
Related Themes:
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Explanation and Analysis:
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"Eyeless" gene (Pax 6) Term Timeline in Your Inner Fish
The timeline below shows where the term "Eyeless" gene (Pax 6) appears in Your Inner Fish. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 9: Vision
...DNA sequences on a specific gene. Scientists then began to study this gene, then called “eyeless,” through fly populations, to pinpoint how this gene was responsible for forming eyes.
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Walter Gehring isolated the eyeless gene and was able to insert the gene to form eyes all over flies’ bodies....
(full context)
Chapter 10: Ears
...Ears. There is a link between the Pax 2 gene for ear formation and the Pax 6 gene we saw in Chapter 9 for eye formation. Box jellyfish are a fairly primitive...
(full context)
