How an ancient Hox code may have helped shape vertebrate fins and limbs (IMAGE)
Caption
The findings support a stepwise model for how the genetic program that builds vertebrate paired fins and limbs may have evolved. An ancestral Hox9–10 program may first have helped establish posterior appendages, later expanded into a broader Hox patterning system, and eventually been redeployed in anterior paired appendages.
Credit
Image adapted from H. Nakazawa et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2026, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2621291123. Used under CC BY-NC-ND.
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