Pax6 is a gene that is important for eye development. When pax6 is knocked out d

Question

Pax6 is a gene that is important for eye development. When pax6 is knocked out during fruit fly development, eye development is disrupted. This is true for mice as well: when pax6 is knocked out in mice, their eyes do not develop properly. What is the most likely evolutionary scenario under which your observation could be true?

1) Mice evolved an eye that expresses pax6 during development before flies, and when flies evolved, they inherited this gene and pathway.
2) Flies evolved an eye that expresses pax6 during development before mice, and when mice evolved, they inherited this gene and pathway.
3) The most recent common ancestor between mice and flies did not have an eye like structure; instead mice and flies evolved eyes that express pax6 independently from one another.
4) In the most recent common ancestor, pax6 was used for an entirely different function than eyes, because the ancestor did not develop eyes at all.
5) The most recent common ancestor between flies and mice had an eye-like structure that expressed pax6 during development.

Explanation / Answer

The fruit fly belongs to the phylum arthropods and the mice belongs the phylum chordata and they both are bilateral. The most recent ancestor of both the organism is annelida, has the eye like structure but not the exact eye, so it is possible that pax6 gene was present but it expressed itself independently in the two organism during the course of evolution.

Option C

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