Speeding up anterior-posterior patterning of insects by differential initialization of the gap gene cascade

Rudolf H, Zellner C, El-Sherif E (2019)


Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2019

Journal

DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2019.04.015

Abstract

Recently, it was shown that anterior-posterior patterning genes in the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum are expressed sequentially in waves. However, in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, an insect with a derived mode of embryogenesis compared to Tribolium, anterior-posterior patterning genes quickly and simultaneously arise as mature gene expression domains that, afterwards, undergo slight posterior-to-anterior shifts. This raises the question of how a fast and simultaneous mode of patterning, like that of Drosophila, could have evolved from a rather slow sequential mode of patterning, like that of Tribolium. In this paper, we propose a mechanism for this evolutionary transition based on a switch from a uniform to a gradient-mediated initialization of the gap gene cascade by maternal Hb. The model is supported by computational analyses and experiments.

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How to cite

APA:

Rudolf, H., Zellner, C., & El-Sherif, E. (2019). Speeding up anterior-posterior patterning of insects by differential initialization of the gap gene cascade. Developmental Biology. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ydbio.2019.04.015

MLA:

Rudolf, Heike, Christine Zellner, and Ezzat El-Sherif. "Speeding up anterior-posterior patterning of insects by differential initialization of the gap gene cascade." Developmental Biology (2019).

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