Gene expression suggests double-segmental and single-segmental patterning mechanisms during posterior segment addition in the beetle Tribolium castaneum

Abstract

In the model arthropod Drosophila, all segments are patterned simultaneously in the blastoderm. In most other arthropods, however, posterior segments are added sequentially from a posterior segment addition zone. Posterior addition of single segments likely represents the ancestral mode of arthropod segmentation, although in Drosophila, segments are patterned in pairs by the pair-rule genes. It has been shown that in the new model insect, the beetle Tribolium, a segmentation clock operates that apparently patterns all segments in pairs as well. Here, I report on the expression of the segment polarity gene H15/midline in Tribolium. In the anterior embryo, segmental stripes of H15 appear in pairs, but in the posterior of the embryo stripes appear in a single-segmental periodicity. This implies that either two completely different segmentation-mechanisms may act in the germ band of Tribolium, that the segmentation clock changes its periodicity during development, or that the speed in which posterior segments are patterned changes. In any case, the data suggest the presence of another (or modified), yet undiscovered, mechanism of posterior segment addition in one of the best-understood arthropod models. The finding of a hitherto unrecognized segmentation mechanism in Tribolium may have major implications for the understanding of the origin of segmentation mechanisms, including the origin of pair rule patterning. It also calls for (re)-investigation of posterior segment addition in Tribolium and other previously studied arthropod models.