Why snakes don't have legs

The Cell magazine published the results of a study that allows us to conclude why the snakes lost their legs.
As we know, the snake's body is narrow and oblong. Snakes have no limbs, and the respiratory system has only one unpaired lung. In all this, snakes differ from their close relatives, lizards.

Scientists from the Chengdu Institute of Biology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences conducted DNA analysis on 14 species of snakes, which belong to 12 different species. In addition, experts used the genomes of 11 million species of reptiles that had been previously identified.

As it turned out as a result of a genetic study, evolution separates them. A mutation in the PTCH1 gene has become a key feature of the change. Scientists have discovered missing sections from this gene. The result of this loss was that the reptiles stopped developing limbs.

To prove this discovery, scientists conducted an experiment on laboratory mice. similar mutations in the PTCH1 gene responsible for the development of limbs, carried out by specialists, led to a change in the physique of mice, shortened limbs were observed in rodents. to understand the causes of genetic diseases in various species, including humans. A robot for sperm injection was created by Overture Life startup specialists in Barcelona, ​​more about it here