optix regulates abdominal melanin pigmentation in the tobacco hawkmoth Manduca sexta
Chatterjee, M.; Hatto, G. C.; Duplais, C.; Varnell, J.; Raguso, R. A.; Reed, R. D.
Show abstract
Research on butterflies has uncovered a conserved "toolkit" of genes for color pattern development and evolution. One of these genes is optix, a homeobox transcription factor that regulates ommochrome and melanin pigmentation, as well as structural coloration, in nymphalid butterflies. It remains unclear, however, whether optix plays any roles in color patterning outside of the Nymphalidae. We used CRISPR-Cas9 to disrupt optix in the tobacco hornwormmoth Manduca sexta and observed a dramatic abdominal pigmentation phenotype, where orange pigmentation was replaced by black eumelanin. Chemical assays suggest that the orange pigment is not an ommochrome, indicating that optix modulates an alternative, uncharacterized pigment pathway in M. sexta. RNA-seq and chemical analyses of orange and black abdominal scales lead us to speculate that the orange pigment may be a type of melanin, perhaps N-{beta}-alanyldopamine (NBAD) sclerotin. Our results suggest that optix plays a deeply ancestral role in pigment regulation in Lepidoptera, and demonstrates evolutionary flexibility in how it interfaces with pigment chemistry across moths and butterflies.
Matching journals
The top 5 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.
Similar papers in this journal
- Cis-regulatory evolution of Wnt-family genes contributes to a morphological difference between silkworm species. 94%
- Intestinal peroxisomal fatty acid β-oxidation regulates neural serotonin signaling through a feedback mechanism 92%
- DAF-16/FoxO and DAF-12/VDR control cellular plasticity both cell-autonomously and via interorgan signaling 92%
Similar papers in this journal
- An olfactory receptor gene underlies reproductive isolation in perfume-collecting orchid bees 93%
- The convergent evolution of caste in ants and honey bees is based on a shared core of ancient reproductive genes and many plastic genes 93%
- Reward signaling in a recurrent circuit of dopaminergic neurons and Kenyon cells 93%
Similar papers in this journal
Similar papers in this journal
"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.