Cargando…

Upregulation of Hox genes leading to caste-specific morphogenesis in a termite

BACKGROUND: In social insects, interactions among colony members trigger caste differentiation with morphological modifications. In termite caste differentiation, caste-specific morphologies (such as mandibles in soldiers, genital organs in reproductives or wings in alates) are well developed during...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Oguchi, Kohei, Miura, Toru
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10375622/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37501210
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13227-023-00216-w
_version_ 1785079073181007872
author Oguchi, Kohei
Miura, Toru
author_facet Oguchi, Kohei
Miura, Toru
author_sort Oguchi, Kohei
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: In social insects, interactions among colony members trigger caste differentiation with morphological modifications. In termite caste differentiation, caste-specific morphologies (such as mandibles in soldiers, genital organs in reproductives or wings in alates) are well developed during post-embryonic development under endocrine controls (e.g., juvenile hormone and ecdysone). Since body part-specific morphogenesis in caste differentiation is hormonally regulated by global factors circulated throughout the body, positional information should be required for the caste-specific and also body part-specific morphogenesis. To identify factors providing the positional information, expression and functional analyses of eight Hox genes were carried out during the three types of caste differentiation (i.e., soldier, neotenic and alate differentiation) in a termite, Hodotermopsis sjostedti. RESULTS: Spatio-temporal patterns of Hox gene expression during caste differentiation were elucidated by real-time qPCR, showing the caste-specific upregulations of Hox genes during the differentiation processes. Among eight Hox genes, Deformed (Dfd) was upregulated specifically in mandibles in soldier differentiation, abdominal-A (abd-A) and Abdominal-B (Abd-B) were upregulated in the abdomen in neotenic differentiation, while Sex-comb reduced (Scr) and Antennapedia (Antp) were upregulated during alate differentiation. Furthermore, RNAi knockdown of Dfd in soldier differentiation and of abd-A and Abd-B in neotenic differentiation distorted the modifications of caste-specific morphologies. CONCLUSIONS: Gene expression and functional analyses in this study revealed that, in the caste differentiation in termites, upregulation of Hox genes provide positional identities of body segments, resulting in the caste-specific morphogenesis. The acquisition of such developmental modifications would have enabled the evolution of sophisticated caste systems in termites. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13227-023-00216-w.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10375622
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher BioMed Central
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-103756222023-07-29 Upregulation of Hox genes leading to caste-specific morphogenesis in a termite Oguchi, Kohei Miura, Toru EvoDevo Research BACKGROUND: In social insects, interactions among colony members trigger caste differentiation with morphological modifications. In termite caste differentiation, caste-specific morphologies (such as mandibles in soldiers, genital organs in reproductives or wings in alates) are well developed during post-embryonic development under endocrine controls (e.g., juvenile hormone and ecdysone). Since body part-specific morphogenesis in caste differentiation is hormonally regulated by global factors circulated throughout the body, positional information should be required for the caste-specific and also body part-specific morphogenesis. To identify factors providing the positional information, expression and functional analyses of eight Hox genes were carried out during the three types of caste differentiation (i.e., soldier, neotenic and alate differentiation) in a termite, Hodotermopsis sjostedti. RESULTS: Spatio-temporal patterns of Hox gene expression during caste differentiation were elucidated by real-time qPCR, showing the caste-specific upregulations of Hox genes during the differentiation processes. Among eight Hox genes, Deformed (Dfd) was upregulated specifically in mandibles in soldier differentiation, abdominal-A (abd-A) and Abdominal-B (Abd-B) were upregulated in the abdomen in neotenic differentiation, while Sex-comb reduced (Scr) and Antennapedia (Antp) were upregulated during alate differentiation. Furthermore, RNAi knockdown of Dfd in soldier differentiation and of abd-A and Abd-B in neotenic differentiation distorted the modifications of caste-specific morphologies. CONCLUSIONS: Gene expression and functional analyses in this study revealed that, in the caste differentiation in termites, upregulation of Hox genes provide positional identities of body segments, resulting in the caste-specific morphogenesis. The acquisition of such developmental modifications would have enabled the evolution of sophisticated caste systems in termites. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13227-023-00216-w. BioMed Central 2023-07-27 /pmc/articles/PMC10375622/ /pubmed/37501210 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13227-023-00216-w Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Oguchi, Kohei
Miura, Toru
Upregulation of Hox genes leading to caste-specific morphogenesis in a termite
title Upregulation of Hox genes leading to caste-specific morphogenesis in a termite
title_full Upregulation of Hox genes leading to caste-specific morphogenesis in a termite
title_fullStr Upregulation of Hox genes leading to caste-specific morphogenesis in a termite
title_full_unstemmed Upregulation of Hox genes leading to caste-specific morphogenesis in a termite
title_short Upregulation of Hox genes leading to caste-specific morphogenesis in a termite
title_sort upregulation of hox genes leading to caste-specific morphogenesis in a termite
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10375622/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37501210
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13227-023-00216-w
work_keys_str_mv AT oguchikohei upregulationofhoxgenesleadingtocastespecificmorphogenesisinatermite
AT miuratoru upregulationofhoxgenesleadingtocastespecificmorphogenesisinatermite