Exploring myriapod segmentation: the expression patterns of even-skipped, engrailed, and wingless in a centipede.
Segment formation is critical to arthropod development, yet there is still relatively little known about this process in most arthropods. Here, we present the expression patterns of the genes even-skipped (eve), engrailed, and wingless in a centipede, Lithobius atkinsoni. Despite some differences when compared with the patterns in insects and crustaceans, the expression of these genes in the centipede suggests that their basic roles are conserved across the mandibulate arthropods. For example, unlike the seven pair-rule stripes of eve expression in the Drosophila embryonic germband, the centipede eve gene is expressed strongly in the posterior of the embryo, and in only a few stripes between newly formed segments. Nonetheless, this pattern likely reflects a conserved role for eve in the process of segment formation, within the different context of a short-germband mode of embryonic development. In the centipede, the genes wingless and engrailed are expressed in stripes along the middle and posterior of each segment, respectively, similar to their expression in Drosophila. The adjacent expression of the engrailed and wingless stripes suggests that the regulatory relationship between the two genes may be conserved in the centipede, and thus this pathway may be a fundamental mechanism of segmental development in most arthropods.
Hughes
Cynthia L
CL
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Biology, Indiana University, Bloomington 47405, USA.
Kaufman
Thomas C
TC
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001181:Arthropods / Q000196:embryology* / Q000235:genetics*; D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D029721:Drosophila Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D004625:Embryo, Nonmammalian / Q000196:embryology / Q000502:physiology; D018507:Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental; D017344:Genes, Insect; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000235:genetics*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D014157:Transcription Factors; D051155:Wnt1 Protein
D001426:Bacterial Proteins; D029721:Drosophila Proteins; D018398:Homeodomain Proteins; D011518:Proto-Oncogene Proteins; D014157:Transcription Factors; D051155:Wnt1 Protein; C106185:engrailed homeobox proteins; C052837:eve protein, Drosophila; C074622:wg protein, Drosophila