Sonic the Hedgehog protagonist Sonic the Hedgehog, a blue hedgehog able to run at supersonic speeds, and recurring villain Dr. Eggman, an evil scientist whose ambition is to conquer the world. Among Sonic's many allies, the most well-known include: Miles "Tails" Prower, a twin-tailed, highly intelligent yellow fox who is Sonic's sidekick and best friend; Amy Rose, a pink hedgehog who is Sonic's self-proclaimed girlfriend and a hero in her own right; Knuckles the Echidna, a coolheaded red echidna who is the guardian of the Master Emerald; Shadow the Hedgehog, an anti-heroic doppelgänger of Sonic with a dark past; and Metal Sonic, a
Sonic hedgehog are thought to be successively patterned throughout the neural tube by the SHH concentration gradient. Mutual inhibition between pairs of transcription factors expressed in neighboring domains contributes to the development of sharp boundaries, however, in some cases, inhibitory relationship has been found even between pairs of transcription factors from more distant domains. Particularly, NKX2-2 expressed in the V3 domain is reported to inhibit IRX3 expressed in V2 and more dorsal domains, although V3 and V2 are separated by a further domain termed MN. Sonic hedgehog (SHH) is a signaling molecule that is encoded by the same gene sonic hedgehog. SHH