Hoxc13 Expression Pattern in Cashmere Goat Skin During Hair Follicle Development

Hoxc13 has an important role in controlling hair formation. In this study, we examine the Hoxc13 RNA expression pattern of skin during embryo development. The result indicated that changes of the Hoxc13 gene expression and thickness of skin have a similar trend during hair follicle morphogenesis. In interpreting these results, we investigated whether the regulation motifs is in Hoxc13 intron, which is a 5.4 kb fragment. To blast with other mammals, we found a very conservative region in all mammal animals and two regions in livestock, such as cow, sheep, horse, dog, and so on, which are not in other Hox genes. We have examined putative pre-miRNA in this region, providing an entry point for elucidating currently unknown mechanisms that are required for regulating quantitative levels of Hoxc13 gene expression.