What do chicken feet, feathers, dinosaurs and Sonic the Hedgehog have to do with each other?
Scientists found that changing the expression of just one important gene leads to the growth of feathers instead of scales . Most breeds of chicken go around barefoot, with no feathers on their talons. But a new study found a simple genetic method to reverse this, neatly transforming scales into something else. Even the smallest changes in gene expression can affect embryonic development.
This allowed researchers to inject a chemical into the still-developing chicken that stimulated the Sonic Hedgehog pathway, all without changing the chicken’s DNA.When the chickens hatched, they had downy feathers on their feet, on the footpads and digits, and these feathers later developed into adult ones that grew in clusters out of the skin.
“Our results indicate that an evolutionary leap from scales to feathers does not require large changes in genome composition or expression,” says Michel Milinkovitch, a professor in the Department of Genetics and Evolution at the University of Geneva, in a To ensure that the chemical injected into the eggs activated SHH alone, the researchers performed RNA analysis on a series of eggs arrested at different stages of development. They found the chemical activated only Sonic Hedgehog, meaning it must have been responsible for the foot feathers.plays a critical role in vertebrate development, including the formation of the neural tube, which forms the brain and spinal cord in humans, and the so-called “limb buds,” which become the arms and legs.
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