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Mörsdorf D, Knabl P, Genikhovich G. Highly conserved and extremely evolvable: BMP signalling in secondary axis patterning of Cnidaria and Bilateria. Dev Genes Evol 2024:10.1007/s00427-024-00714-4. [PMID: 38472535 DOI: 10.1007/s00427-024-00714-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2023] [Accepted: 03/06/2024] [Indexed: 03/14/2024]
Abstract
Bilateria encompass the vast majority of the animal phyla. As the name states, they are bilaterally symmetric, that is with a morphologically clear main body axis connecting their anterior and posterior ends, a second axis running between their dorsal and ventral surfaces, and with a left side being roughly a mirror image of their right side. Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signalling has widely conserved functions in the formation and patterning of the second, dorso-ventral (DV) body axis, albeit to different extents in different bilaterian species. Whilst initial findings in the fruit fly Drosophila and the frog Xenopus highlighted similarities amongst these evolutionarily very distant species, more recent analyses featuring other models revealed considerable diversity in the mechanisms underlying dorsoventral patterning. In fact, as phylogenetic sampling becomes broader, we find that this axis patterning system is so evolvable that even its core components can be deployed differently or lost in different model organisms. In this review, we will try to highlight the diversity of ways by which BMP signalling controls bilaterality in different animals, some of which do not belong to Bilateria. Future research combining functional analyses and modelling is bound to give us some understanding as to where the limits to the extent of the evolvability of BMP-dependent axial patterning may lie.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Mörsdorf
- Dept. Neurosciences and Developmental Biology, University of Vienna, UBB, Djerassiplatz 1, 1030, Vienna, Austria
| | - Paul Knabl
- Dept. Neurosciences and Developmental Biology, University of Vienna, UBB, Djerassiplatz 1, 1030, Vienna, Austria
- Vienna Doctoral School of Ecology and Evolution (VDSEE), University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
| | - Grigory Genikhovich
- Dept. Neurosciences and Developmental Biology, University of Vienna, UBB, Djerassiplatz 1, 1030, Vienna, Austria.
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Liu J, Murray JI. Mechanisms of lineage specification in Caenorhabditis elegans. Genetics 2023; 225:iyad174. [PMID: 37847877 DOI: 10.1093/genetics/iyad174] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/26/2023] [Accepted: 09/18/2023] [Indexed: 10/19/2023] Open
Abstract
The studies of cell fate and lineage specification are fundamental to our understanding of the development of multicellular organisms. Caenorhabditis elegans has been one of the premiere systems for studying cell fate specification mechanisms at single cell resolution, due to its transparent nature, the invariant cell lineage, and fixed number of somatic cells. We discuss the general themes and regulatory mechanisms that have emerged from these studies, with a focus on somatic lineages and cell fates. We next review the key factors and pathways that regulate the specification of discrete cells and lineages during embryogenesis and postembryonic development; we focus on transcription factors and include numerous lineage diagrams that depict the expression of key factors that specify embryonic founder cells and postembryonic blast cells, and the diverse somatic cell fates they generate. We end by discussing some future perspectives in cell and lineage specification.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jun Liu
- Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
| | - John Isaac Murray
- Department of Genetics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
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Janssen R, Schomburg C, Prpic NM, Budd GE. A comprehensive study of arthropod and onychophoran Fox gene expression patterns. PLoS One 2022; 17:e0270790. [PMID: 35802758 PMCID: PMC9269926 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0270790] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2022] [Accepted: 06/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Fox genes represent an evolutionary old class of transcription factor encoding genes that evolved in the last common ancestor of fungi and animals. They represent key-components of multiple gene regulatory networks (GRNs) that are essential for embryonic development. Most of our knowledge about the function of Fox genes comes from vertebrate research, and for arthropods the only comprehensive gene expression analysis is that of the fly Drosophila melanogaster. For other arthropods, only selected Fox genes have been investigated. In this study, we provide the first comprehensive gene expression analysis of arthropod Fox genes including representative species of all main groups of arthropods, Pancrustacea, Myriapoda and Chelicerata. We also provide the first comprehensive analysis of Fox gene expression in an onychophoran species. Our data show that many of the Fox genes likely retained their function during panarthropod evolution highlighting their importance in development. Comparison with published data from other groups of animals shows that this high degree of evolutionary conservation often dates back beyond the last common ancestor of Panarthropoda.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ralf Janssen
- Department of Earth Sciences, Palaeobiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
- * E-mail:
| | - Christoph Schomburg
- AG Zoologie mit dem Schwerpunkt Molekulare Entwicklungsbiologie, Institut für Allgemeine Zoologie und Entwicklungsbiologie, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Gießen, Germany
- Fachgebiet Botanik, Institut für Biologie, Universität Kassel, Kassel, Germany
| | - Nikola-Michael Prpic
- AG Zoologie mit dem Schwerpunkt Molekulare Entwicklungsbiologie, Institut für Allgemeine Zoologie und Entwicklungsbiologie, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Gießen, Germany
| | - Graham E. Budd
- Department of Earth Sciences, Palaeobiology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
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Wu X, Yao J, Wang L, Zhang D, Zhang L, Reynolds EX, Yu T, Boström KI, Yao Y. Crosstalk between BMP and Notch Induces Sox2 in Cerebral Endothelial Cells. Cells 2019; 8:E549. [PMID: 31174355 PMCID: PMC6628192 DOI: 10.3390/cells8060549] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2019] [Revised: 05/31/2019] [Accepted: 06/05/2019] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) and Notch signaling are critical for endothelial cell (EC) differentiation in vascular development. Recent studies have shown that excess BMP activity induces Notch signaling in cerebral ECs resulting in arteriovenous malformation (AVMs). However, it is unclear how the crosstalk between BMP and Notch signaling affects cerebral EC differentiation at the gene regulatory level. Here, we report that BMP6 activates the activin receptor-like kinase (ALK) 3, a BMP type 1 receptor, to induce Notch1 receptor and Jagged1 and Jagged2 ligands. We show that increased expression of the Notch components alters the transcriptional regulatory complex in the SRY-Box 2 (Sox2) promoter region so as to induce its expression in cerebral ECs. Together, our results identify Sox2 as a direct target of BMP and Notch signaling and provide information on how altered BMP and Notch signaling affects the endothelial transcriptional landscape.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiuju Wu
- Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1679, USA.
| | - Jiayi Yao
- Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1679, USA.
| | - Lumin Wang
- Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1679, USA.
- Department of cell Biology and Genetics, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong University Health Science Center, Xi'an, 710061, China.
| | - Daoqin Zhang
- Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1679, USA.
| | - Li Zhang
- Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1679, USA.
| | - Eric X Reynolds
- Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1679, USA.
| | - Tongtong Yu
- Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1679, USA.
- Department of Cardiology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang 110004, China.
| | - Kristina I Boström
- Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1679, USA.
- The Molecular Biology Institute at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1570, USA.
| | - Yucheng Yao
- Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1679, USA.
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Goh KY, Inoue T. A large transcribed enhancer region regulates C. elegans bed-3 and the development of egg laying muscles. BIOCHIMICA ET BIOPHYSICA ACTA-GENE REGULATORY MECHANISMS 2018; 1861:519-533. [PMID: 29481869 DOI: 10.1016/j.bbagrm.2018.02.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2017] [Revised: 02/21/2018] [Accepted: 02/21/2018] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
Abstract
Gene expression is regulated by the interaction of the RNA polymerase with various transcription factors at promoter and enhancer elements. Transcriptome analyses found that many non-protein-coding regions are transcribed to produce long non-coding RNAs and enhancer-associated RNAs. Production of these transcripts is associated with activation of nearby protein-coding genes, and at least in some cases, the transcripts themselves mediate this activation. Non-coding transcripts are also reported from large enhancers or clusters of enhancers. However, not much is known about the function of large transcribed enhancer regions during organismal development. Here we investigated a transcribed 10.6 kb intergenic region located upstream of the C. elegans bed-3 gene. We found that parts of this region exhibit tissue-specific promoter and enhancer activities. Deletion of the region disrupts egg laying, a phenotype also observed in bed-3 mutants, but with the severity correlating with the size of the deletion. This phenotype is not caused by overall reduction in bed-3 expression. Rather, deletions reduce bed-3 expression specifically in the mesoderm lineage. We found that bed-3 has a previously unknown function in the generation of sex myoblast (SM) cells from the M lineage, and deletions cause loss of SM cells leading to loss of vulval muscles required for egg laying. Furthermore, injection of dsRNA targeting non-coding transcripts from this region disrupted egg laying in the wild type but not in RNAi-defective mutants. Therefore, the region upstream of bed-3 is required for robust expression of bed-3 in a specific tissue, and non-coding transcripts may mediate this interaction.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kah Yee Goh
- Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117597
| | - Takao Inoue
- Department of Biochemistry, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 117597.
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