homeobox
- n one of various similar homeotic genes that are involved in bodily segmentation during embryonic development
- Other factors could be involved as well, including homeobox genes that are not Hox genes (that is, they do not affect the overall structure of an animal).
- Hundreds of genes belong to the extended homeobox family, but those that are also homoeotic -- associated with changes in body parts -- are the most important.
- Primitive multicelled organisms like jellyfish, they reasoned, have three so-called homeotic homeobox genes, or Hox genes, which serve as the master controllers of embryonic .