Hox Gene - Classification of Hox Proteins

Classification of Hox Proteins

Proteins with high degree of sequence similarity are also generally assumed to exhibit a high degree of functional similarity, i.e. Hox proteins with identical homeodomains are assumed to have identical DNA-binding properties (unless additional sequences are known to influence that). To identify the set of proteins between two different species that are most likely to be most similar in function, classification schemes are used. For Hox proteins, three different classification schemes exist: phylogenetic inference based, synenty based, and sequence similarity based.