Emerging developmental genetic model systems in holometabolous insects

Abstract

The number of insect species that are amenable to functional genetic studies is growing rapidly and provides many new research opportunities in developmental and evolutionary biology. The holometabolous insects represent a disproportionate percentage of animal diversity and are thus well positioned to provide model species for a wide variety of developmental processes. Here we discuss emerging holometabolous models, and review some recent breakthroughs. For example, flies and midges were found to use structurally unrelated long-range pattern organizers, butterflies and moths revealed extensive pattern formation during oogenesis, new imaging possibilities in the flour beetle Tribolium castaneum showed how embryos break free of their extraembryonic membranes, and the complex genetics governing interspecies difference in head shape were revealed in Nasonia wasps.

Duplication and divergence of Sox genes in spiders

“…melanogaster has taught us much about conserved developmental genes and processes, it is only more recently that genomic and other experimental approaches are beginning to shed light on the way genes and regulatory networks are deployed to generate the diversity of body plans found in other insects [38] and more widely in chelicerates and myriapods [39]. In terms of the Sox family, recent work indicates conserved Group B expression in the early neuroectoderm of the myriapod Glomeris marginata [35] and neurectodermal expression of a Group B gene in the chelicerate P. tepidariorum has been reported [40].…”

Contribution of cell proliferation to axial elongation in the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum

“…Interestingly, this mode of segmentation is also found in vertebrates [8] and relies in both cases on oscillatory mechanisms, where the temporal periodicity of a clock is translated into repetitive spatial patterns [9–13]. This ordered anterior-to-posterior pattern is achieved at the same time as the tissue elongates, opening the question of the functional relevance of one process (elongation) on the other (segmentation), and vice versa.The red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum has become a prominent comparative model organism, being the second best studied arthropod after Drosophila melanogaster [14–16]. Within the last years, diverse genetic and molecular tools, as well as imaging and embryonic techniques, have been developed in Tribolium [12, 17–20], providing the opportunity to understand a wide range of developmental processes and certainly to give insights into the morphological evolution of arthropods.…”

The effects of insecticides on butterflies – A review

“…Recently these fields have become increasingly more integrated by investigating the underlying developmental genetic mechanisms involved in the response to a variety of environmental factors, in particular host plants (Yu et al, 2016;Schweizer et al, 2017;Sikkink et al, 2017). Speckled Wood butterflies (P. aegeria), for example, are an emerging developmental genetic model system to study growth, development (including embryogenesis) and the production of reproductive cells (Carter et al, 2013;Carter et al, 2015;Schmidt-Ott and Lynch, 2016). It is also a species whose habitat has expanded from forests to include agricultural fields and urbanised environments, providing an opportunity to gauge the effects on pesticide exposure on local populations in a (meta-)population network (Van Dyck and Holveck, 2016).…”