Expression of Irx6 during mouse morphogenesis

Iroquois (Irx) proteins comprise a family of homeodomain-containing transcription factors involved in patterning and regionalization of embryonic tissues in both vertebrates and invertebrates. The six murine Irx genes are organized in two clusters, each consisting of three genes. Irx1, Irx2 and Irx4 belong to the IrxA cluster on chromosome 13, whereas Irx3, Irx5 and Irx6, comprising the IrxB cluster, are located on chromosome 8 (Peters et al., Genome Res. 10 (2000) 1453). Developmental expression patterns have so far only been reported for five Irx genes. Here, we investigated the expression pattern of Irx6 during mouse morphogenesis and early organogenesis. The pattern was found to be much more restricted compared to the other five Irx genes, and its level of expression was much lower.