Evidence map›Paper›PMID 26442047›Full record

ArticleFrontiers in plant science2015

A stranger in a strange land: the utility and interpretation of heterologous expression.

Elena M Kramer

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Frontiers in plant science, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
7citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

7 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Review
  2. NGATHA carpel development genes evolved in the common ancestor of seed plants.The Plant journal : for cell and molecular biology · 2025
    Article
  3. Model Species to Investigate the Origin of Flowers.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2023
    Article
  4. Review
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Elena M KramerDepartment of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University , Cambridge, MA, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

One of the major goals of the modern study of evodevo is to understand the evolution of gene function across a range of contexts, including sub/neofunctionalization, co-option of genetic modules, and the evolution of morphological novelty. To these ends, comparative studies of gene expression can be useful for constructing hypotheses, but cannot provide direct evidence of functional evolution. Unfortunately, determining endogenous gene function in non-model species is often not an option. Faced with this dilemma, a common approach is to use heterologous expression (HE) in genetically tractable model species as a proxy for functional analyses. Such experiments have important limitations, however, and require caution in the interpretation of their results. How do we dissociate biochemical function from its original genomic context? In the end, what does HE actually tell us? Here, I argue that HE only sheds light on specific types of biochemical conservation, but can be useful when experiments are carefully interpreted.

Indexed as

biochemical evolutiondevelopmental geneticsevo-devofunctional evolutionheterologous expression

Identifiers

PMID26442047
PMCPMC4569974

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.