BarH Like Homeobox Protein 2 (BARHL2)

The Drosophila BarH1 and BarH2 (Bar) genes are homeobox-containing genes, which are required for the fate determination of external sensory organs in the fly. Using a bioinformatic approach, Bulfone et al. (2000) identified murine and human homeobox genes highly related to the Bar Drosophila genes, which they designated Barhl1 and Barhl2. Murine Barhl2 is the homolog of the rat mBH1 gene. Bulfone et al. (2000) isolated a fragment of the human BARHL2 gene by PCR of human genomic DNA using primers designed on the sequence of the rat mBH1 cDNA. The human BARHL2 fragment shares 92% and 74% nucleotide identity, respectively, with the rat mBH1 and human BARHL1 cDNA sequences. Barhl2 is more highly homologous to Drosophila BARH2 than is murine BARX2