Dataset Information

The achaete-scute complex in Diptera: patterns of noncoding sequence evolution.

ABSTRACT: The achaete-scute complex (AS-C) has been a useful paradigm for the study of pattern formation and its evolution. achaete-scute genes have duplicated and evolved distinct expression patterns during the evolution of cyclorraphous Diptera. Are the expression patterns in different species driven by conserved regulatory elements? If so, when did such regulatory elements arise? Here, we have sequenced most of the AS-C of the fly Calliphora vicina (including the genes achaete, scute and lethal of scute) to compare noncoding sequences with known cis-regulatory sequences in Drosophila. The organization of the complex is conserved with respect to Drosophila species. There are numerous small stretches of conserved noncoding sequence that, in spite of high sequence turnover, display binding sites for known transcription factors. Synteny of the blocks of conserved noncoding sequences is maintained suggesting not only conservation of the position of regulatory elements but also an origin prior to the divergence between these two species. We propose that some of these enhancers originated by duplication with their target genes.

SUBMITTER: Negre B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4832353 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The achaete-scute complex in Diptera: patterns of noncoding sequence evolution.

Negre B B Simpson P P

Journal of evolutionary biology 20150907 10

The achaete-scute complex (AS-C) has been a useful paradigm for the study of pattern formation and its evolution. achaete-scute genes have duplicated and evolved distinct expression patterns during the evolution of cyclorraphous Diptera. Are the expression patterns in different species driven by conserved regulatory elements? If so, when did such regulatory elements arise? Here, we have sequenced most of the AS-C of the fly Calliphora vicina (including the genes achaete, scute and lethal of scut ...[more]

PMID: 26134680

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Functional studies in model organisms, such as vertebrates and Drosophila, have shown that basic Helix-loop-Helix (bHLH) proteins have important roles in different steps of neurogenesis, from the acquisition of neural fate to the differentiation into specific neural cell types. However, these studies highlighted many differences in the expression and function of orthologous bHLH proteins during neural development between vertebrates and Drosophila. To understand how the functions of neural bHLH genes have evolved among bilaterians, we have performed a detailed study of bHLH genes during nervous system development in the polychaete annelid, Platynereis dumerilii, an organism which is evolutionary distant from both Drosophila and vertebrates. RESULTS:We have studied Platynereis orthologs of the most important vertebrate neural bHLH genes, i.e. achaete-scute, neurogenin, atonal, olig, and NeuroD genes, the latter two being genes absent of the Drosophila genome. We observed that all these genes have specific expression patterns during nervous system formation in Platynereis. Our data suggest that in Platynereis, like in vertebrates but unlike Drosophila, (i) neurogenin is the main proneural gene for the formation of the trunk central nervous system, (ii) achaete-scute and olig genes are involved in neural subtype specification in the central nervous system, in particular in the specification of the serotonergic phenotype. In addition, we found that the Platynereis NeuroD gene has a broad and early neuroectodermal expression, which is completely different from the neuronal expression of vertebrate NeuroD genes. CONCLUSION:Our analysis suggests that the Platynereis bHLH genes have both proneural and neuronal specification functions, in a way more akin to the vertebrate situation than to that of Drosophila. We conclude that these features are ancestral to bilaterians and have been conserved in the vertebrates and annelids lineages, but have diverged in the evolutionary lineage leading to Drosophila.

Dataset Information

The achaete-scute complex in Diptera: patterns of noncoding sequence evolution.

Publications

The achaete-scute complex in Diptera: patterns of noncoding sequence evolution.

Similar Datasets

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