Abstract
Cricket nymphs have the remarkable ability to regenerate a functional leg following amputation, indicating that the regenerating blastemal cells contain information for leg morphology. However, the molecular mechanisms that underlie regeneration of leg patterns remain poorly understood. Here, we analyzed phenotypes of the tibia and tarsus (three tarsomeres) obtained by knockdown with regeneration-dependent RNA interference (rdRNAi) against Gryllus dachshund (Gb'dac) and Distal-less (Gb'Dll). We found that depletion of Gb'Dll mRNA results in loss of the tarsal segments, while rdRNAi against Gb'dac shortens the tibia at the two most distal tarsomeres. These results indicate that Gb'Dll expression is indispensable for formation of the tarsus, while Gb'dac expression is necessary for elongation of the tibia and formation of the most proximal tarsomere. These findings demonstrate that mutual transcriptional regulation between the two is indispensable for formation of the tarsomeres, whereas Gb'dac is involved in determination of tibial size through interaction with Gb'ds/Gb'ft.
Highlights
Cricket nymphs have the remarkable ability to regenerate a functional leg following amputation, indicating that the regenerating blastemal cells contain information for leg morphology
Our previous work has shown that Gryllus wingless (Gb’wg) and decapentaplegic (Gb’dpp) are expressed in the ventral and dorsal sides of blastemal cells, respectively, while Gryllus hedgehog (Gb’hh) is expressed in the posterior side of the blastema, similar to that observed in the leg bud[4,6] and in the Drosophila leg imaginal disc[7]
We demonstrated that tibial size and shape along the PD axis in the regenerating cricket leg are regulated through the Gb’Ds/Gb’Ft signaling pathway[25,26,27]
Summary
Cricket nymphs have the remarkable ability to regenerate a functional leg following amputation, indicating that the regenerating blastemal cells contain information for leg morphology. Rauskolb[17] designated these four genes as the ‘‘leg gap genes’’ by analogy with embryonic segmentation, because the absence of Dll, dac, and hth functions results in deletion of distal, intermediate, and proximal leg segments, respectively[10,16,18,19,20]. The expression of these genes roughly www.nature.com/scientificreports corresponds to the regions of the leg affected by their absence and is related to the initial crude positional values along the PD axis of the holometabolous fly legs. These findings imply that the functions of the leg gap genes are conserved in the insect leg
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