ArticleCommunications biology2025
Evolutionary dynamics of FoxQ2 transcription factors across metazoans reveals three ancient paralogs.
Article in Communications biology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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.
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.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Evolutionary dynamics of FoxQ2 transcription factors across metazoans reveals three ancient paralogs.Communications biology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
FoxQ2 is a highly conserved Forkhead-box transcription factor expressed anteriorly in cnidarians and bilaterians, yet its evolution is marked by rapid divergence and lineage-specific duplications or losses. Moreover, its presence and localization in vertebrate groups remains unclear. To reconcile these conflicting reports of conservation and divergence, we combine phylogenetic and synteny analyses of FoxQ2 sequences from 21 animal phyla. We uncover three ancient FoxQ2 paralogs in bilaterians-FoxQ2I, FoxQ2II, and FoxQ2III. All three were present in the chordate ancestor, and two are retained in vertebrates, indicating a richer FoxQ2 repertoire in vertebrates than previously recognized. To assess FoxQ2 expression, we analyzed mollusk, acoel, amphioxus, and zebrafish single-cell transcriptomic datasets, and conducted fluorescent in situ hybridization in amphioxus, lamprey, skate, zebrafish, and chicken. FoxQ2I and FoxQ2II show conserved anterior expression, while FoxQ2III is expressed in the gut endoderm in chordates, including amphioxus, lamprey, and skate. We also predict conserved transcription factor binding sites across amphioxus genera, revealing stage- and cell-type-specific regulatory interactions for FoxQ2I in deuterostomes. Overall, this work clarifies FoxQ2's evolutionary history, identifies the endodermally expressed paralog FoxQ2III, and proposes that early duplication of FoxQ2I/II enabled subfunctionalization, driving the fast evolutionary rate of FoxQ2 sequences observed in bilaterians.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.