Expression patterns of duplicated snail genes in the leech Helobdella.

snail gene family members are zinc-finger transcription factors with key roles in morphogenesis. Involvement of snail family genes in mesoderm formation has been observed in insects and mammals. The snail genes are also involved in cell motility, neural differentiation, cell fate, survival decision, and left-right identity. The functions of snail genes have been studied primarily among ecdysozoans and deuterostomes, with relatively little work carried out in lophotrochozoans. In this study, we isolated two snail homologs (Hau-snail1 and Hau-snail2) from the leech Helobdella austinensis. We characterized the temporal and spatial expression patterns of these two genes by semi-quantitative RT-PCR and in situ hybridization. The expression of Hau-snail1 and Hau-snail2 correlates with ventral nerve cord (VNC) development, segmental mesoderm, and with a ring of cells that comes to lie at the base of the leech proboscis, respectively, showing similarity to the divergent expression of duplicated snail genes in polychaetes. Our results do not support the function of lophotrochozoan snail genes in mesoderm specification.