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Genomic And Gene Regulatory Signatures Of Cryptozoic Adaptation: Loss Of Blue Sensitive Photoreceptors Through Expansion Of Long Wavelength-Opsin Expression In The Red Flour Beetle Tribolium Castaneum, Magdalena Jackowska, Riyue Bao, Zhenyi Liu, Elizabeth C. Mcdonald, Tiffany A. Cook, Markus Friedrich
Genomic And Gene Regulatory Signatures Of Cryptozoic Adaptation: Loss Of Blue Sensitive Photoreceptors Through Expansion Of Long Wavelength-Opsin Expression In The Red Flour Beetle Tribolium Castaneum, Magdalena Jackowska, Riyue Bao, Zhenyi Liu, Elizabeth C. Mcdonald, Tiffany A. Cook, Markus Friedrich
Wayne State University Associated BioMed Central Scholarship
Abstract
Background
Recent genome sequence analysis in the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum indicated that this highly crepuscular animal encodes only two single opsin paralogs: a UV-opsin and a long wavelength (LW)-opsin; however, these animals do not encode a blue (B)-opsin as most other insects. Here, we studied the spatial regulation of the Tribolium single LW- and UV-opsin gene paralogs in comparison to that of the five opsin paralogs in the retina of Drosophila melanogaster.
Results
In situ hybridization analysis reveals that the Tribolium retina, in contrast with other insect retinas, constitutes a homogenous field of ommatidia that have seven …