TLS Online TPP Program

#Question id: 5004


Pax-6 usually causes the production of a type of light-receptor pigments. In vertebrate eyes, though, a different gene (the rh gene family) is responsible for the light-receptor pigments of the retina. The rh gene, like Pax-6, is ancient. In the marine ragworm, for example, the rh gene causes production of c-opsin, which helps regulate the wormʹs biological clock. Which of these most likely accounts for vertebrate vision?

#Unit 11. Evolution and Behavior
  1. The Pax-6 gene mutated to become the rh gene among early mammals.

  2. During vertebrate evolution, the rh gene for biological clock opsin was co-opted as a gene for visual receptor pigments.

  3. In animals more ancient than ragworms, the rh gene(s) coded for visual receptor pigments; in lineages more recent than ragworms, rh has flip-flopped several times between producing biological clock opsins and visual receptor pigments.

  4. Pax-6 was lost from the mammalian genome, and replaced by the rh gene much later.