{"title":"Recent approaches lead to a deeper understanding of diverse segmentation mechanisms in insects, with a focus on the pair-rule genes.","authors":"Katie Reding, Leslie Pick","doi":"10.1016/j.cois.2024.101317","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The division of the insect embryo into repeated units - segments - is a fundamental feature of the body plan. The genes controlling this process in Drosophila melanogaster were identified in genetic screens and characterized in that species in numerous studies in the 1980s and 1990s. These genes form a well-established hierarchy and have been leveraged to examine gene regulation, transcriptional machinery, chromatin structure, and more. Much of the genetic toolkit identified in Drosophila is highly conserved throughout the animal kingdom, spearheading the field of evolutionary developmental biology or Evo-Devo. Accordingly, a 'Drosophila-centric' approach has examined the evolutionary conservation of orthologs of Drosophila segmentation genes in closely and distantly related insects. Here, we report on progress in both Drosophila and emerging model insects in recent years (2022 to present), with much of the new research related to the pair-rule subset of segmentation genes. We highlight new findings on 'classic' Drosophila genes, revealing unexpected roles of genes and cis-regulatory elements in this species. We further report on the expanding knowledge about mechanisms regulating to segmentation in emerging model insects that are distantly related to Drosophila, including those that pattern segments sequentially. We also describe technical advances in both Drosophila and nonmodel species that are currently progressing research in this field.</p>","PeriodicalId":11038,"journal":{"name":"Current opinion in insect science","volume":" ","pages":"101317"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Current opinion in insect science","FirstCategoryId":"97","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cois.2024.101317","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"农林科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The division of the insect embryo into repeated units - segments - is a fundamental feature of the body plan. The genes controlling this process in Drosophila melanogaster were identified in genetic screens and characterized in that species in numerous studies in the 1980s and 1990s. These genes form a well-established hierarchy and have been leveraged to examine gene regulation, transcriptional machinery, chromatin structure, and more. Much of the genetic toolkit identified in Drosophila is highly conserved throughout the animal kingdom, spearheading the field of evolutionary developmental biology or Evo-Devo. Accordingly, a 'Drosophila-centric' approach has examined the evolutionary conservation of orthologs of Drosophila segmentation genes in closely and distantly related insects. Here, we report on progress in both Drosophila and emerging model insects in recent years (2022 to present), with much of the new research related to the pair-rule subset of segmentation genes. We highlight new findings on 'classic' Drosophila genes, revealing unexpected roles of genes and cis-regulatory elements in this species. We further report on the expanding knowledge about mechanisms regulating to segmentation in emerging model insects that are distantly related to Drosophila, including those that pattern segments sequentially. We also describe technical advances in both Drosophila and nonmodel species that are currently progressing research in this field.
期刊介绍:
Current Opinion in Insect Science is a new systematic review journal that aims to provide specialists with a unique and educational platform to keep up–to–date with the expanding volume of information published in the field of Insect Science. As this is such a broad discipline, we have determined themed sections each of which is reviewed once a year.
The following 11 areas are covered by Current Opinion in Insect Science.
-Ecology
-Insect genomics
-Global Change Biology
-Molecular Physiology (Including Immunity)
-Pests and Resistance
-Parasites, Parasitoids and Biological Control
-Behavioural Ecology
-Development and Regulation
-Social Insects
-Neuroscience
-Vectors and Medical and Veterinary Entomology
There is also a section that changes every year to reflect hot topics in the field.
Section Editors, who are major authorities in their area, are appointed by the Editors of the journal. They divide their section into a number of topics, ensuring that the field is comprehensively covered and that all issues of current importance are emphasized. Section Editors commission articles from leading scientists on each topic that they have selected and the commissioned authors write short review articles in which they present recent developments in their subject, emphasizing the aspects that, in their opinion, are most important. In addition, they provide short annotations to the papers that they consider to be most interesting from all those published in their topic over the previous year.