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Phylogenetic mapping of scale nanostructure diversity in snakes

BACKGROUND: Many species of snakes exhibit epidermal surface nanostructures that form complex motifs conferring self-cleaning properties, and sometimes structural iridescence, to their skin. RESULTS: Using confocal microscopy, we show that these specialised cells can be greatly elongated along their...

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Autores principales: Arrigo, Marcelle I., De Oliveira Vilaca, Luis M., Fofonjka, Anamarija, Srikanthan, Achyuthan N., Debry, Adrien, Milinkovitch, Michel C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6469093/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30991958
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1411-6
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author Arrigo, Marcelle I.
De Oliveira Vilaca, Luis M.
Fofonjka, Anamarija
Srikanthan, Achyuthan N.
Debry, Adrien
Milinkovitch, Michel C.
author_facet Arrigo, Marcelle I.
De Oliveira Vilaca, Luis M.
Fofonjka, Anamarija
Srikanthan, Achyuthan N.
Debry, Adrien
Milinkovitch, Michel C.
author_sort Arrigo, Marcelle I.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Many species of snakes exhibit epidermal surface nanostructures that form complex motifs conferring self-cleaning properties, and sometimes structural iridescence, to their skin. RESULTS: Using confocal microscopy, we show that these specialised cells can be greatly elongated along their left-right axis and that different types of nanostructures are generated by cell borders and cell surface. To characterise the complexity and diversity of these surface gratings, we analysed scanning electron microscopy images of skin sheds from 353 species spanning 19 of the 26 families of snakes and characterised the observed nanostructures with four characters. The full character matrix, as well as one representative SEM image of each of the corresponding species, is available as a MySQL relational database at https://snake-nanogratings.lanevol.org. We then performed continuous-time Markov phylogenetic mapping on the snake phylogeny, providing an evolutionary dynamical estimate for the different types of nanostructures. These analyses suggest that the presence of cell border digitations is the ancestral state for snake skin nanostructures which was subsequently and independently lost in multiple lineages. Our analyses also indicate that cell shape and cell border shape are co-dependent characters whereas we did not find correlation between a simple life habit classification and any specific nanomorphological character. CONCLUSIONS: These results, compatible with the fact that multiple types of nanostructures can generate hydrophobicity, suggest that the diversity and complexity of snake skin surface nano-morphology are dominated by phylogenetic rather than habitat-specific functional constraints. The present descriptive study opens the perspective of investigating the cellular self-organisational cytoskeletal processes controlling the patterning of different skin surface nanostructures in snakes and lizards. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12862-019-1411-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-64690932019-04-23 Phylogenetic mapping of scale nanostructure diversity in snakes Arrigo, Marcelle I. De Oliveira Vilaca, Luis M. Fofonjka, Anamarija Srikanthan, Achyuthan N. Debry, Adrien Milinkovitch, Michel C. BMC Evol Biol Research Article BACKGROUND: Many species of snakes exhibit epidermal surface nanostructures that form complex motifs conferring self-cleaning properties, and sometimes structural iridescence, to their skin. RESULTS: Using confocal microscopy, we show that these specialised cells can be greatly elongated along their left-right axis and that different types of nanostructures are generated by cell borders and cell surface. To characterise the complexity and diversity of these surface gratings, we analysed scanning electron microscopy images of skin sheds from 353 species spanning 19 of the 26 families of snakes and characterised the observed nanostructures with four characters. The full character matrix, as well as one representative SEM image of each of the corresponding species, is available as a MySQL relational database at https://snake-nanogratings.lanevol.org. We then performed continuous-time Markov phylogenetic mapping on the snake phylogeny, providing an evolutionary dynamical estimate for the different types of nanostructures. These analyses suggest that the presence of cell border digitations is the ancestral state for snake skin nanostructures which was subsequently and independently lost in multiple lineages. Our analyses also indicate that cell shape and cell border shape are co-dependent characters whereas we did not find correlation between a simple life habit classification and any specific nanomorphological character. CONCLUSIONS: These results, compatible with the fact that multiple types of nanostructures can generate hydrophobicity, suggest that the diversity and complexity of snake skin surface nano-morphology are dominated by phylogenetic rather than habitat-specific functional constraints. The present descriptive study opens the perspective of investigating the cellular self-organisational cytoskeletal processes controlling the patterning of different skin surface nanostructures in snakes and lizards. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12862-019-1411-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-04-16 /pmc/articles/PMC6469093/ /pubmed/30991958 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1411-6 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 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 Article
Arrigo, Marcelle I.
De Oliveira Vilaca, Luis M.
Fofonjka, Anamarija
Srikanthan, Achyuthan N.
Debry, Adrien
Milinkovitch, Michel C.
Phylogenetic mapping of scale nanostructure diversity in snakes
title Phylogenetic mapping of scale nanostructure diversity in snakes
title_full Phylogenetic mapping of scale nanostructure diversity in snakes
title_fullStr Phylogenetic mapping of scale nanostructure diversity in snakes
title_full_unstemmed Phylogenetic mapping of scale nanostructure diversity in snakes
title_short Phylogenetic mapping of scale nanostructure diversity in snakes
title_sort phylogenetic mapping of scale nanostructure diversity in snakes
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6469093/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30991958
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12862-019-1411-6
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