English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Insects determine their body segments in two different ways. Short-germband insects, such as the flour beetle  Tribolium castaneum , use a molecular clock to establish segments sequentially. In contrast, long-germband insects, such as the vinegar fly  Drosophila melanogaster , determine all segments simultaneously through a hierarchical cascade of gene regulation. Gap genes constitute the first layer of the  Drosophila  segmentation gene hierarchy, downstream of maternal gradients such as that of Caudal (Cad). We use data-driven mathematical modelling and phase space analysis to show that shifting gap domains in the posterior half of the  Drosophila  embryo are an emergent property of a robust damped oscillator mechanism, suggesting that the regulatory dynamics underlying long- and short-germband segmentation are much more similar than previously thought. In  Tribolium , Cad has been proposed to modulate the frequency of the segmentation oscillator. Surprisingly, our simulations and experiments show that the shift rate of posterior gap domains is independent of maternal Cad levels in  Drosophila . Our results suggest a novel evolutionary scenario for the short- to long-germband transition and help explain why this transition occurred convergently multiple times during the radiation of the holometabolan insects.

A damped oscillator imposes temporal order on posterior gap gene expression in Drosophila