Abstract
In the long germ insect Drosophila, the gene tailless acts to pattern the terminal regions of the embryo. Loss of function of this gene results in the deletion of the anterior and posterior terminal structures and the eighth abdominal segment. Drosophila tailless is activated by the maternal terminal system through Torso signaling at both poles of the embryo, with additional activation by Bicoid at the anterior. Here, we describe the expression and function of tailless in a long germ Hymenoptera, the wasp Nasonia vitripennis. Despite the morphological similarities in the mode of development of these two insects, we find major differences in the regulation and function of tailless between Nasonia and Drosophila. In contrast to the fly, Nasonia tll appears to rely on otd for its activation at both poles. In addition, the anterior domain of Nasonia tll appears to have little or no segmental patterning function, while the posterior tll domain has a much more extensive patterning role than its Drosophila counterpart.
References
Bucher G, Scholten J, Klingler M (2002) Parental RNAi in Tribolium (Coleoptera). Curr Biol 12:R85–R86
Casali A, Casanova J (2001) The spatial control of Torso RTK activation: a C-terminal fragment of the Trunk protein acts as a signal for Torso receptor in the Drosophila embryo. Development 128:1709–1715
Davis GK, Patel NH (2002) Short, long, and beyond: molecular and embryological approaches to insect segmentation. Annu Rev Entomol 47:669–699
Duffy JB, Perrimon N (1994) The torso pathway in Drosophila: lessons on receptor tyrosine kinase signaling and pattern formation. Dev Biol 166:380–395
Goltsev Y, Hsiong W, Lanzaro G, Levine M (2004) Different combinations of gap repressors for common stripes in Anopheles and Drosophila embryos. Dev Biol 275:435–446
Lynch JA, Brent AE, Leaf DS, Pultz MA, Desplan C (2006) Localized maternal orthodenticle patterns anterior and posterior in the long germ wasp Nasonia. Nature 439:728–732
Mahoney PA, Lengyel JA (1987) The zygotic segmentation mutant tailless alters the blastoderm fate map of the Drosophila embryo. Dev Biol 122:464–470
Margolis JS, Borowsky ML, Steingrimsson E, Shim CW, Lengyel JA, Posakony JW (1995) Posterior stripe expression of hunchback is driven from two promoters by a common enhancer element. Development 121:3067–3077
Mlodzik M, Gehring WJ (1987) Expression of the caudal gene in the germ line of Drosophila: formation of an RNA and protein gradient during early embryogenesis. Cell 48:465–478
Nusslein-Volhard C (1991) Determination of the embryonic axes of Drosophila. Dev Suppl 1:1–10
Pignoni F, Baldarelli RM, Steingrimsson E, Diaz RJ, Patapoutian A, Merriam JR, Lengyel JA (1990) The Drosophila gene tailless is expressed at the embryonic termini and is a member of the steroid receptor superfamily. Cell 62:151–163
Pignoni F, Steingrimsson E, Lengyel JA (1992) Bicoid and the terminal system activate tailless expression in the early Drosophila embryo. Development 115:239–251
Pultz MA, Westendorf L, Gale SD, Hawkins K, Lynch J, Pitt JN, Reeves NL, Yao JC, Small S, Desplan C, Leaf DS (2005) A major role for zygotic hunchback in patterning the Nasonia embryo. Development 132:3705–3715
Savant-Bhonsale S, Montell DJ (1993) Torso-like encodes the localized determinant of Drosophila terminal pattern formation. Genes Dev 7:2548–2555
Schoppmeier M, Schroder R (2005) Maternal torso signaling controls body axis elongation in a short germ insect. Curr Biol 15:2131–2136
Schroder R, Eckert C, Wolff C, Tautz D (2000) Conserved and divergent aspects of terminal patterning in the beetle Tribolium castaneum. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 97:6591–6596
Stevens LM, Frohnhofer HG, Klingler M, Nusslein-Volhard C (1990) Localized requirement for torso-like expression in follicle cells for development of terminal anlagen of the Drosophila embryo. Nature 346:660–663
Weigel D, Jurgens G, Klingler M, Jackle H (1990) Two gap genes mediate maternal terminal pattern information in Drosophila. Science 248:495–498
Yu RT, McKeown M, Evans RM, Umesono K (1994) Relationship between Drosophila gap gene tailless and a vertebrate nuclear receptor Tlx. Nature 370:375–379
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Communicated by guest editors Jean Deutsch and Gerhard Scholtz
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Lynch, J.A., Olesnicky, E.C. & Desplan, C. Regulation and function of tailless in the long germ wasp Nasonia vitripennis . Dev Genes Evol 216, 493–498 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-006-0076-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-006-0076-5