Iroquois Homeobox Protein 2 (IRX2)

IRX2 is a member of the Iroquois homeobox gene family. Members of this family appear to play multiple roles during pattern formation of vertebrate embryos.Lewis et al. (1999) determined that the homeodomains of human Iroquois homeobox proteins are about 90% identical to the homeodomains of the Drosophila Iroquois complex proteins and about 93% identical to each other. Each of the IRX proteins contains a hexapeptide-like motif. By screening of a human genomic library with chicken IRX2 cDNA and EST database searching, Ogura et al. (2001) cloned 4 human IRX genes, including IRX2, which encodes a deduced protein that is highly homologous to mouse Irx2.