Topic
Blastoderm segmentation
About: Blastoderm segmentation is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4 publications have been published within this topic receiving 195 citations.
Papers
TL;DR: The periodicity of the Tribolium pair-rule gene interactions reveals components of the genetic hierarchy that are regulated in a repetitive circuit or clock-like mechanism that may be more generally applicable to segmentation in other arthropods.
Abstract: In Drosophila, a hierarchy of maternal, gap, pair-rule, and segment polarity gene interactions regulates virtually simultaneous blastoderm segmentation. For the last decade, studies have focused on revealing the extent to which Drosophila segmentation mechanisms are conserved in other arthropods where segments are added sequentially from anterior to posterior in a cellular environment. Despite our increased knowledge of individual segmentation genes, details of their interactions in non-Drosophilid insects are not well understood. We analyzed the Tribolium orthologs of Drosophila pair-rule genes, which display pair-rule expression patterns. Tribolium castaneum paired (Tc-prd) and sloppy-paired (Tc-slp) genes produced pair-rule phenotypes when their transcripts were severely reduced by RNA interference. In contrast, similar analysis of T. castaneum even-skipped (Tc-eve), runt (Tc-run), or odd-skipped (Tc-odd) genes produced severely truncated, almost completely asegmental phenotypes. Analysis of interactions between pair-rule components revealed that Tc-eve, Tc-run, and Tc-odd form a three-gene circuit to regulate one another as well as their downstream targets, Tc-prd and Tc-slp. The complement of primary pair-rule genes in Tribolium differs from Drosophila in that it includes Tc-odd but not Tc-hairy. This gene circuit defines segments sequentially in double segment periodicity. Furthermore, this single mechanism functions in the early blastoderm stage and subsequently during germ-band elongation. The periodicity of the Tribolium pair-rule gene interactions reveals components of the genetic hierarchy that are regulated in a repetitive circuit or clock-like mechanism. This pair-rule gene circuit provides insight into short-germ segmentation in Tribolium that may be more generally applicable to segmentation in other arthropods.
194 citations
1 Jan 2012
TL;DR: The method leverages sequence motifs within a known regulatory sequence to identify co-regulated sequences without explicitly defining binding sites and shows that regulatory sequences can be distinguished from surrounding sequences by local sequence dissimilarity, a novel feature in identifying regulatory sequences across a genome.
Abstract: Author(s): Leung, Garmay E. | Advisor(s): Eisen, Michael B | Abstract: Background Recognizing regulatory sequences in genomes is a continuing challenge, despite a wealth of available genomic data and a growing number of experimentally validated examples.Methodology/Principal Findings We discuss here a simple approach to search for regulatory sequences based on the compositional similarity of genomic regions and known cis-regulatory sequences. This method, which is not limited to searching for predefined motifs, recovers sequences known to be under similar regulatory control. The words shared by the recovered sequences often correspond to known binding sites. Furthermore, we show that although local word profile clustering is predictive for the regulatory sequences involved in blastoderm segmentation, local dissimilarity is a more universal feature of known regulatory sequences in Drosophila.Conclusions/Significance Our method leverages sequence motifs within a known regulatory sequence to identify co-regulated sequences without explicitly defining binding sites. We also show that regulatory sequences can be distinguished from surrounding sequences by local sequence dissimilarity, a novel feature in identifying regulatory sequences across a genome.
TL;DR: It is suggested that simultaneous blastoderm segmentation evolved at or close to the origin of holometabolous insects, and formed the basis for the evolution of the segmentation mode seen in Drosophila.
Abstract: Segments are formed simultaneously in the blastoderm of the fly Drosophila melanogaster through a hierarchical cascade of interacting transcription factors. Conversely, in many insects and in all n...
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 2 |
| 2012 | 1 |
| 2006 | 1 |