An Amphioxus Gli Gene Reveals Conservation of Midline Patterning and the Evolution of Hedgehog Signalling Diversity in Chordates

Abstract

These data show that vertebrates and amphioxus have evolved functionally-similar repertoires of Gli proteins using parallel molecular routes; vertebrates via gene duplication and divergence, and amphioxus via alternate splicing of a single gene. Our results demonstrate that similar functional complexity of intercellular signalling can be achieved via different evolutionary pathways.