Plasticity and regeneration of gonads in the annelid Pristina leidyi

BACKGROUND: Gonads are specialized gamete-producing structures that, despite their functional importance, are generated by diverse mechanisms across groups of animals and can be among the most plastic organs of the body. Annelids, the segmented worms, are a group in which gonads have been documented...

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Autores principales: Özpolat, B. Duygu, Sloane, Emily S., Zattara, Eduardo E., Bely, Alexandra E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5051023/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27708756
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13227-016-0059-1
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author Özpolat, B. Duygu
Sloane, Emily S.
Zattara, Eduardo E.
Bely, Alexandra E.
author_facet Özpolat, B. Duygu
Sloane, Emily S.
Zattara, Eduardo E.
Bely, Alexandra E.
author_sort Özpolat, B. Duygu
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Gonads are specialized gamete-producing structures that, despite their functional importance, are generated by diverse mechanisms across groups of animals and can be among the most plastic organs of the body. Annelids, the segmented worms, are a group in which gonads have been documented to be plastic and to be able to regenerate, but little is known about what factors influence gonad development or how these structures regenerate. In this study, we aimed to identify factors that influence the presence and size of gonads and to investigate gonad regeneration in the small asexually reproducing annelid, Pristina leidyi. RESULTS: We found that gonad presence and size in asexual adult P. leidyi are highly variable across individuals and identified several factors that influence these structures. An extrinsic factor, food availability, and two intrinsic factors, individual age and parental age, strongly influence the presence and size of gonads in P. leidyi. We also found that following head amputation in this species, gonads can develop by morphallactic regeneration in previously non-gonadal segments. We also identified a sexually mature individual from our laboratory culture that demonstrates that, although our laboratory strain reproduces only asexually, it retains the potential to become fully sexual. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that gonads in P. leidyi display high phenotypic plasticity and flexibility with respect to their presence, their size, and the segments in which they can form. Considering our findings along with relevant data from other species, we find that, as a group, clitellate annelids can form gonads in at least four different contexts: post-starvation refeeding, fission, morphallactic regeneration, and epimorphic regeneration. This group is thus particularly useful for investigating the mechanisms involved in gonad formation and the evolution of post-embryonic phenotypic plasticity. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13227-016-0059-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-50510232016-10-05 Plasticity and regeneration of gonads in the annelid Pristina leidyi Özpolat, B. Duygu Sloane, Emily S. Zattara, Eduardo E. Bely, Alexandra E. EvoDevo Research BACKGROUND: Gonads are specialized gamete-producing structures that, despite their functional importance, are generated by diverse mechanisms across groups of animals and can be among the most plastic organs of the body. Annelids, the segmented worms, are a group in which gonads have been documented to be plastic and to be able to regenerate, but little is known about what factors influence gonad development or how these structures regenerate. In this study, we aimed to identify factors that influence the presence and size of gonads and to investigate gonad regeneration in the small asexually reproducing annelid, Pristina leidyi. RESULTS: We found that gonad presence and size in asexual adult P. leidyi are highly variable across individuals and identified several factors that influence these structures. An extrinsic factor, food availability, and two intrinsic factors, individual age and parental age, strongly influence the presence and size of gonads in P. leidyi. We also found that following head amputation in this species, gonads can develop by morphallactic regeneration in previously non-gonadal segments. We also identified a sexually mature individual from our laboratory culture that demonstrates that, although our laboratory strain reproduces only asexually, it retains the potential to become fully sexual. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrate that gonads in P. leidyi display high phenotypic plasticity and flexibility with respect to their presence, their size, and the segments in which they can form. Considering our findings along with relevant data from other species, we find that, as a group, clitellate annelids can form gonads in at least four different contexts: post-starvation refeeding, fission, morphallactic regeneration, and epimorphic regeneration. This group is thus particularly useful for investigating the mechanisms involved in gonad formation and the evolution of post-embryonic phenotypic plasticity. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13227-016-0059-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2016-10-04 /pmc/articles/PMC5051023/ /pubmed/27708756 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13227-016-0059-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Özpolat, B. Duygu
Sloane, Emily S.
Zattara, Eduardo E.
Bely, Alexandra E.
Plasticity and regeneration of gonads in the annelid Pristina leidyi
title Plasticity and regeneration of gonads in the annelid Pristina leidyi
title_full Plasticity and regeneration of gonads in the annelid Pristina leidyi
title_fullStr Plasticity and regeneration of gonads in the annelid Pristina leidyi
title_full_unstemmed Plasticity and regeneration of gonads in the annelid Pristina leidyi
title_short Plasticity and regeneration of gonads in the annelid Pristina leidyi
title_sort plasticity and regeneration of gonads in the annelid pristina leidyi
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5051023/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27708756
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13227-016-0059-1
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