Terminology Service for NFDI4Health
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digit

Go to external page http://purl.obolibrary.org/obo/UBERON_0002544

A subdivision of the autopod that has as part a series of phalanges together with associated vasculature, musculature, integument and nerves. It is continuous with the metapodial subdivision of the autopod, but does not include the metapodials. In species such as humans, fully formed digits are distinct, whereas in other species the digits may be connected by interdigital webbing, or may be completely unseparated (for example, in cetaceans). [ http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6601-2165 https://github.com/obophenotype/uberon/issues/420 ]

Term info

Label

digit

Synonyms
  • acropodial unit
  • digit (phalangeal portion) plus soft tissue
  • limb digit
database cross reference
Subsets

uberon_slim, efo_slim, pheno_slim

contributor

https://github.com/wdahdul, https://github.com/cmungall, https://github.com/alex-dececchi, https://github.com/balhoff

curator notes

this class represents the entire organism subdivision encompassing soft tissue as well as the underlying skeletal framework. The class represents the phalangeal part only - historically the term 'digit' has also been used to represent the unit consisting of a series of phalanges together with a metapodial bone. We may in future relabel this class to avoid confusion with this concept, but the class will continue to represent the phalangeal portion

homology notes

Our reinterpretation of the distal fin endoskeleton of Panderichthys removes the final piece of evidence supporting the formerly popular hypothesis that tetrapod digits are wholly new structures without homologues in sarcopterygian fish fins. This hypothesis, which was based partly on the complete absence of plausible digit homologues in Panderichthys (then the closest known relative of tetrapods), has already been called into question by the discovery of digit-like radials in Tiktaalik and the fact that Hox gene expression patterns closely resembling those associated with digit formation in tetrapods occur in the distal fin skeletons of paddlefish and Australian lungfish. Our new data show that Panderichthys is not an anomaly: like Tiktaalik and other fish members of the Tetrapodomorpha, it has distal radials that can be interpreted as digit homologues.[well established][VHOG]

id

UBERON:0002544