Human development’s first gear

Team spent ten years trying to find role of four genes:  Argfx, Leutx, Dprx and Tprx Genes only act in one brief period during the early stages of an embryo After fertilisation starts the engine of growth, genes control the 'first gear' of embryo development Genes arose 70 million years ago in an unstable area of human DNA - Oxford University researchers are closer to solving a decade-old mystery after discovering that a set of genes they are studying play a key role in early human development. It was really shocking to find these genes are only read for a pulse of a few hours in our entire lifetime. Dr Ignacio Maeso, Department of Zoology - Evolutionary biologist Professor Peter Holland and graduate student Anne Booth identified and named the genes, known as Argfx, Leutx, Dprx and Tprx , in data published by the Human Genome Project in 2002. The genes belong to the homeobox group, and it was known that other homeobox genes direct the formation of tissues and organs during development. However, when they tried to find out exactly what the newly discovered genes did, they hit a problem. Professor Holland explained: 'To find a gene's function, you first look to see where it is switched on or expressed. But wherever we looked for these genes we could not see them expressed, making their function more and more of a mystery.