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Diverse set of Turing nanopatterns coat corneae across insect lineages.

ABSTRACT: Nipple-like nanostructures covering the corneal surfaces of moths, butterflies, and Drosophila have been studied by electron and atomic force microscopy, and their antireflective properties have been described. In contrast, corneal nanostructures of the majority of other insect orders have either been unexamined or examined by methods that did not allow precise morphological characterization. Here we provide a comprehensive analysis of corneal surfaces in 23 insect orders, revealing a rich diversity of insect corneal nanocoatings. These nanocoatings are categorized into four major morphological patterns and various transitions between them, many, to our knowledge, never described before. Remarkably, this unexpectedly diverse range of the corneal nanostructures replicates the complete set of Turing patterns, thus likely being a result of processes similar to those modeled by Alan Turing in his famous reaction-diffusion system. These findings reveal a beautiful diversity of insect corneal nanostructures and shed light on their molecular origin and evolutionary diversification. They may also be the first-ever biological example of Turing nanopatterns.

SUBMITTER: Blagodatski A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4553778 | biostudies-other | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Reduced cellular immune response in social insect lineages.

Project description:Social living poses challenges for individual fitness because of the increased risk of disease transmission among conspecifics. Despite this challenge, sociality is an evolutionarily successful lifestyle, occurring in the most abundant and diverse group of organisms on earth--the social insects. Two contrasting hypotheses predict the evolutionary consequences of sociality on immune systems. The social group hypothesis posits that sociality leads to stronger individual immune systems because of the higher risk of disease transmission in social species. By contrast, the relaxed selection hypothesis proposes that social species have evolved behavioural immune defences that lower disease risk within the group, resulting in lower immunity at the individual level. We tested these hypotheses by measuring the encapsulation response in 11 eusocial and non-eusocial insect lineages. We built phylogenetic mixed linear models to investigate the effect of behaviour, colony size and body size on cellular immune response. We found a significantly negative effect of colony size on encapsulation response (Markov chain Monte Carlo generalized linear mixed model (mcmcGLMM) p < 0.05; phylogenetic generalized least squares (PGLS) p < 0.05). Our findings suggest that insects living in large societies may rely more on behavioural mechanisms, such as hygienic behaviours, than on immune function to reduce the risk of disease transmission among nest-mates.

| S-EPMC4843217 | biostudies-literature

A collagenous protective coat enables Metarhizium anisopliae to evade insect immune responses.

Project description:The ubiquitous fungal pathogen Metarhizium anisopliae kills a wide range of insects. Host hemocytes can recognize and ingest its conidia, but this capacity is lost on production of hyphal bodies. We show that the unusual ability of hyphal bodies to avoid detection depends on a gene (Mcl1) that is expressed within 20 min of the pathogen contacting hemolymph. A mutant disrupted in Mcl1 is rapidly attacked by hemocytes and shows a corresponding reduction of virulence to Manduca sexta. Mcl1 encodes a three domain protein comprising a hydrophilic, negatively charged N-terminal region with 14 cysteine residues, a central region comprising tandem repeats (GXY) characteristic of collagenous domains, and a C-terminal region that includes a glycosylphosphatidylinositol-dependent cell wall attachment site. Immunofluorescence assay showed that hyphal bodies are covered by the N-terminal domains of MCL1. The collagen domain became antibody accessible after treatment with DTT, suggesting that the N termini are linked by interchain disulfide bonds and are presented on the cell surface by extended collagenous fibers. Studies with staining reagents and hemocyte monolayers showed that MCL1 functions as an antiadhesive protective coat because it masks antigenic structural components of the cell wall such as beta-glucans, and because its hydrophilic negatively charged nature makes it unattractive to hemocytes. A survey of 54 fungal genomes revealed that seven other species have proteins with collagenous domains suggesting that MCL1 is a member of a patchily distributed gene family.

| S-EPMC1458935 | biostudies-literature

Ngn2 induces diverse neuronal lineages from human pluripotency

Project description:Human neurons engineered from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) through Neurogenin 2 (Ngn2) overexpression are widely used to study neuronal differentiation mechanisms and to model neurological diseases. However, the differentiation paths and heterogeneity of emerged neurons have not been fully explored. Here we used single-cell transcriptomics to dissect the cell states that emerge during Ngn2 overexpression across a time course from pluripotency to neuron functional maturation. We find a substantial molecular heterogeneity in the neuron types generated, with at least two populations that express genes associated with neurons of the peripheral nervous system. Neuron heterogeneity is observed across multiple iPSC clones and lines from different individuals. We find that neuron fate acquisition is sensitive to Ngn2 expression level and the duration of Ngn2 forced expression. Our data reveals that Ngn2 dosage can regulate neuron fate acquisition, and that Ngn2-iN heterogeneity can confound results that are sensitive to neuron type.

2021-08-05 | E-MTAB-10632 | biostudies-arrayexpress

Debris-carrying camouflage among diverse lineages of Cretaceous insects.

Project description:Insects have evolved diverse methods of camouflage that have played an important role in their evolutionary success. Debris-carrying, a behavior of actively harvesting and carrying exogenous materials, is among the most fascinating and complex behaviors because it requires not only an ability to recognize, collect, and carry materials but also evolutionary adaptations in related morphological characteristics. However, the fossil record of such behavior is extremely scarce, and only a single Mesozoic example from Spanish amber has been recorded; therefore, little is known about the early evolution of this complicated behavior and its underlying anatomy. We report a diverse insect assemblage of exceptionally preserved debris carriers from Cretaceous Burmese, French, and Lebanese ambers, including the earliest known chrysopoid larvae (green lacewings), myrmeleontoid larvae (split-footed lacewings and owlflies), and reduviids (assassin bugs). These ancient insects used a variety of debris material, including insect exoskeletons, sand grains, soil dust, leaf trichomes of gleicheniacean ferns, wood fibers, and other vegetal debris. They convergently evolved their debris-carrying behavior through multiple pathways, which expressed a high degree of evolutionary plasticity. We demonstrate that the behavioral repertoire, which is associated with considerable morphological adaptations, was already widespread among insects by at least the Mid-Cretaceous. Together with the previously known Spanish specimen, these fossils are the oldest direct evidence of camouflaging behavior in the fossil record. Our findings provide a novel insight into early evolution of camouflage in insects and ancient ecological associations among plants and insects.

| S-EPMC4928993 | biostudies-literature

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Baculovirus: an insect-derived vector for diverse gene transfer applications.

Project description:Insect-derived baculoviruses have emerged as versatile and safe workhorses of biotechnology. Baculovirus expression vectors (BEVs) have been applied widely for crop and forest protection, as well as safe tools for recombinant protein production in insect cells. However, BEVs ability to efficiently transduce noninsect cells is still relatively poorly recognized despite the fact that efficient baculovirus-mediated in vitro and ex vivo gene delivery into dormant and dividing vertebrate cells of diverse origin has been described convincingly by many authors. Preliminary proof of therapeutic potential has also been established in preclinical studies. This review summarizes the advantages and current status of baculovirus-mediated gene delivery. Stem cell transduction, preclinical animal studies, tissue engineering, vaccination, cancer gene therapy, viral vector production, and drug discovery are covered.

| S-EPMC3616530 | biostudies-other

coat

Project description:cattle phenotype

| PRJEB42465 | ENA

Deciphering evolutionary dynamics of SWEET genes in diverse plant lineages.

Project description:SWEET/MtN3/saliva genes are prevalent in cellular organisms and play diverse roles in plants. These genes are widely considered as evolutionarily conserved genes, which is inconsistent with their extensive expansion and functional diversity. In this study, SWEET genes were identified from 31 representative plant species, and exhibited remarkable expansion and diversification ranging from aquatic to land plants. Duplication detection indicated that the sharp increase in the number of SWEET genes in higher plants was largely due to tandem and segmental duplication, under purifying selection. In addition, phylogeny reconstruction of SWEET genes was performed using the maximum-likelihood (ML) method; the genes were grouped into four clades, and further classified into 10 monocot and 11 dicot subfamilies. Furthermore, selection pressure of SWEET genes in different subfamilies was investigated via different strategies (classical and Bayesian maximum likelihood (Datamonkey/PAML)). The average dN/dS for each group were lower than one, indicating purifying selection. Individual positive selection sites were detected within 4 of the 21 sub-families by both two methods, including two monocot subfamilies in Clade III, harboring five rice SWEET homologs characterized to confer resistance to rice bacterial blight disease. Finally, we traced evolutionary fate of SWEET genes in clade III for functional characterization in future.

| S-EPMC6128921 | biostudies-literature

Conservation of Nef function across highly diverse lineages of SIVsmm.

Project description:SIVsmm is a simian immunodeficiency virus that persists efficiently without causing disease in naturally infected sooty mangabeys (SMs) but induces AIDS upon cross-species transmission to humans and macaques. Current phylogenetic data indicate that SIVsmm strains comprise a highly diverse group of viruses that can be subdivided into different lineages. Since only certain SIVsmm strains have successfully crossed the species barrier to humans and macaques, the question has been raised whether there are lineage specific differences in SIVsmm biology. In the present study we examined whether representatives of five different SIVsmm lineages show differences in the function of the accessory Nef protein, which plays an important role in viral persistence, transmission and pathogenesis.We found that nef alleles from all SIVsmm lineages down-modulated CD4, MHC-I, CD28 and CD3 and up-regulated the invariant chain (Ii) associated with immature MHC-II molecules in human-derived cells. Moreover, they generally suppressed the responsiveness of virally infected T cells to activation, enhanced virion infectivity and promoted virus replication in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. The functional activity of these nef alleles in the various assays varied substantially between different strains of SIVsmm but quantitative analyses did not reveal any significant lineage-specific differences in Nef function.Nef alleles from different lineages of SIVsmm do not require adaptive changes to be functionally active in human cells. Strain rather than lineage-specific differences in Nef function may impact the virological and immunological feature of SIVsmm in SMs and possibly affected viral fitness and pathogenicity in human and macaque hosts.

| S-EPMC2678078 | biostudies-literature

Dam inactivation in Neisseria meningitidis: prevalence among diverse hyperinvasive lineages.

Project description:BackgroundDNA adenine methyltransferase (Dam) activity is absent in many, but not all, disease isolates of Neisseria meningitidis, as a consequence of the insertion of a restriction endonuclease-encoding gene, the 'dam replacing gene' (drg) at the dam locus. Here, we report the results of a survey to assess the prevalence of drg in a globally representative panel of disease-associated meningococci.ResultsOf the known meningococcal hyper-invasive lineages investigated, drg was absent in all representatives of the ST-8 and ST-11 clonal complexes tested, but uniformly present in the representatives of the other hyper-invasive lineages present in the isolate collection (the ST-1, ST-4, ST-5, ST-32 and ST-41/44 clonal complexes). The patterns of sequence diversity observed in drg were consistent with acquisition of this gene from a source organism with a different G+C content, at some time prior to the emergence of present-day meningococcal clonal complexes, followed by spread through the meningococcal population by horizontal genetic exchange. During this spread a number of alleles have arisen by mutation and intragenic recombination.ConclusionThese findings are consistent with the idea that possession of the drg gene may contribute to the divergence observed among meningococcal clonal complexes, but does not have a direct mechanistic involvement in virulence.

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