{"title":"Morphogens in the evolution of size, shape and patterning.","authors":"Lewis S Mosby, Amy E Bowen, Zena Hadjivasiliou","doi":"10.1242/dev.202412","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Much of the striking diversity of life on Earth has arisen from variations in the way that the same molecules and networks operate during development to shape and pattern tissues and organs into different morphologies. However, we still understand very little about the potential for diversification exhibited by different, highly conserved mechanisms during evolution, or, conversely, the constraints that they place on evolution. With the aim of steering the field in new directions, we focus on morphogen-mediated patterning and growth as a case study to demonstrate how conserved developmental mechanisms can adapt during evolution to drive morphological diversification and optimise functionality, and to illustrate how evolution algorithms and computational tools can be used alongside experiments to provide insights into how these conserved mechanisms can evolve. We first introduce key conserved properties of morphogen-driven patterning mechanisms, before summarising comparative studies that exemplify how changes in the spatiotemporal expression and signalling levels of morphogens impact the diversification of organ size, shape and patterning in nature. Finally, we detail how theoretical frameworks can be used in conjunction with experiments to probe the role of morphogen-driven patterning mechanisms in evolution. We conclude that morphogen-mediated patterning is an excellent model system and offers a generally applicable framework to investigate the evolution of developmental mechanisms.</p>","PeriodicalId":11375,"journal":{"name":"Development","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7616732/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Development","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1242/dev.202412","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/9/18 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Much of the striking diversity of life on Earth has arisen from variations in the way that the same molecules and networks operate during development to shape and pattern tissues and organs into different morphologies. However, we still understand very little about the potential for diversification exhibited by different, highly conserved mechanisms during evolution, or, conversely, the constraints that they place on evolution. With the aim of steering the field in new directions, we focus on morphogen-mediated patterning and growth as a case study to demonstrate how conserved developmental mechanisms can adapt during evolution to drive morphological diversification and optimise functionality, and to illustrate how evolution algorithms and computational tools can be used alongside experiments to provide insights into how these conserved mechanisms can evolve. We first introduce key conserved properties of morphogen-driven patterning mechanisms, before summarising comparative studies that exemplify how changes in the spatiotemporal expression and signalling levels of morphogens impact the diversification of organ size, shape and patterning in nature. Finally, we detail how theoretical frameworks can be used in conjunction with experiments to probe the role of morphogen-driven patterning mechanisms in evolution. We conclude that morphogen-mediated patterning is an excellent model system and offers a generally applicable framework to investigate the evolution of developmental mechanisms.
期刊介绍:
Development’s scope covers all aspects of plant and animal development, including stem cell biology and regeneration. The single most important criterion for acceptance in Development is scientific excellence. Research papers (articles and reports) should therefore pose and test a significant hypothesis or address a significant question, and should provide novel perspectives that advance our understanding of development. We also encourage submission of papers that use computational methods or mathematical models to obtain significant new insights into developmental biology topics. Manuscripts that are descriptive in nature will be considered only when they lay important groundwork for a field and/or provide novel resources for understanding developmental processes of broad interest to the community.
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