Unscrambling butterfly oogenesis

BMC Genomics

Research Article

Simon C Baker¹  Jean-Michel Carter²  Casper J Breuker²  Aiden Collins²  Jeremie Tomlin²  Melanie Gibbs³  David RF Carter⁴  Ryan Pink⁴ 

[1] Bioline Reagents Ltd, 16 The Edge Business Centre, Humber Road, NW2 6EW, London, UK;Evolutionary Developmental Biology Research Group, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane, OX3 0BP, Headington, Oxford, UK;NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Maclean Building, Benson Lane, OX10 8BB, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford, UK;Non-coding RNA Research Group, Faculty of Health and Life Sciences, Department of Biological and Medical Sciences, Oxford Brookes University, Gipsy Lane, OX3 0BP, Headington, Oxford, UK;

关键词: Oogenesis;    Pararge aegeria;    Lepidoptera;    Bombyx mori;    Drosophila melanogaster;    Transcriptome;    Eco-evo-devo;    Reproductive physiology;    Maternal effects;    Early embryogenesis;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2164-14-283

 received in 2013-01-11, accepted in 2013-04-05,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundButterflies are popular model organisms to study physiological mechanisms underlying variability in oogenesis and egg provisioning in response to environmental conditions. Nothing is known, however, about; the developmental mechanisms governing butterfly oogenesis, how polarity in the oocyte is established, or which particular maternal effect genes regulate early embryogenesis. To gain insights into these developmental mechanisms and to identify the conserved and divergent aspects of butterfly oogenesis, we analysed a de novo ovarian transcriptome of the Speckled Wood butterfly Pararge aegeria (L.), and compared the results with known model organisms such as Drosophila melanogaster and Bombyx mori.ResultsA total of 17306 contigs were annotated, with 30% possibly novel or highly divergent sequences observed. Pararge aegeria females expressed 74.5% of the genes that are known to be essential for D. melanogaster oogenesis. We discuss the genes involved in all aspects of oogenesis, including vitellogenesis and choriogenesis, plus those implicated in hormonal control of oogenesis and transgenerational hormonal effects in great detail. Compared to other insects, a number of significant differences were observed in; the genes involved in stem cell maintenance and differentiation in the germarium, establishment of oocyte polarity, and in several aspects of maternal regulation of zygotic development.ConclusionsThis study provides valuable resources to investigate a number of divergent aspects of butterfly oogenesis requiring further research. In order to fully unscramble butterfly oogenesis, we also now also have the resources to investigate expression patterns of oogenesis genes under a range of environmental conditions, and to establish their function.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Carter et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.