The morphological and molecular processes of onychophoran brain development show unique features that are neither comparable to insects nor to chelicerates

The phylogenetic position of onychophorans is still being debated; however, most phylogenies suggest that onychophorans are a sister group to the arthropods. Here we have analysed neurogenesis in the brain of the onychophoran Euperipatoides kanangrensis. We show that the development of the onychophoran brain is considerably different from arthropods. Neural precursors seem to be generated at random positions rather than in distinct spatio-temporal domains as has been shown in insects and chelicerates. The different mode of neural precursor formation is reflected in the homogenous expression of the proneural and neurogenic genes. Furthermore, the morphogenetic events that generate the three-dimensional structure of the onychophoran brain are significantly different from arthropods. Despite the different mode of neural precursor formation in insects and chelicerates (neuroblasts versus neural precursor groups), brain neurogenesis shares more similarities in these arthropods as compared to the onychophoran. Our data show that the developmental processes that generate the brain have considerably diverged in onychophorans and arthropods.     

Genetic control of Drosophila nerve cord development

The Drosophila ventral nerve cord has been a central model system for studying the molecular genetic mechanisms that control CNS development. Studies show that the generation of neural diversity is a multistep process initiated by the patterning and segmentation of the neuroectoderm. These events act together with the process of lateral inhibition to generate precursor cells (neuroblasts) with specific identities, distinguished by the expression of unique combinations of regulatory genes. The expression of these genes in a given neuroblast restricts the fate of its progeny, by activating specific combinations of downstream genes. These genes in turn specify the identity of any given postmitotic cell, which is evident by its cellular morphology and choice of neurotransmitter.     

The Tribolium columnar genes reveal conservation and plasticity in neural precursor patterning along the embryonic dorsal-ventral axis

The Drosophila columnar genes are key regulators of neural precursor formation and patterning along the dorsal-ventral axis of the developing CNS and include ventral nerve cord defective (vnd), intermediate nerve cord defective (ind), muscle segment homeodomain (msh), and Epidermal growth factor receptor (Egfr). To investigate the evolution of neural pattern formation, we identified and determined the expression patterns of Tribolium vnd, ind, and msh, and found that they are expressed in the medial, intermediate, and lateral columns of the developing CNS, respectively, in patterns similar, but not identical, to their Drosophila orthologs. The pattern of Egfr activity suggests that the genetic regulatory mechanisms that initiate Tc-vnd expression are similar in Drosophila and Tribolium, whereas those that initiate Tc-ind have diverged. RNAi analyses of gene function show that Tc-vnd and Tc-ind promote the formation of medial and intermediate column neural precursors and that vnd-mediated repression of ind establishes the boundary between the medial and intermediate columns. These data suggest that columnar gene expression and function underlie neural pattern formation in Drosophila, Tribolium, and potentially all insects, but that subtle spatiotemporal differences in expression of these genes may produce species-specific morphological differences.     

Analysis of the expression pattern of Mysidium columbiae wingless provides evidence for conserved mesodermal and retinal patterning processes among insects and crustaceans

The Wnt family includes a number of genes, such as wingless ( wg), which encode secreted glycoproteins that function in numerous developmental patterning processes. In order to gain a better understanding of crustacean pattern formation, a wg orthologue was cloned from the malacostracan crustacean Mysidium columbiae(mysid), and the expression pattern of this gene was compared with that of Drosophila wg. Although Drosophila wg is expressed in many developing tissues, such as the ventral neuroectoderm, M. columbiae wg (mcowg)expression is detected within only a subset of these tissues. mcowg is expressed in the dorsal part of each developing segment and within the developing eye, but not within the ventral neuroectoderm. Dorsal wg expression in Drosophila is required for heart and muscle development, and conservation of this dorsal wgexpression pattern suggests that mcowgmay function to pattern these tissues in mysids. Consistent with this, expression of Even-skipped (Eve) protein in heart precursor and muscle cells, which is dependent on Wg signaling in Drosophila, is also conserved in mysids. Within the developing mysid eye, mcowg is expressed in a pattern that is similar to the expression pattern of Drosophila wg in the fly eye disc. In Drosophila,Wg inhibits neural differentiation at the anterior margin of the eye disc and patterns the dorsal/ventral axis of the eye. These data indicate that mcowg may function similarly during mysid eye development. Analysis of mcowgexpression provides molecular evidence suggesting that the processes of heart, muscle, and eye patterning are likely to be conserved among insects and crustaceans.     

Orthologs of key vertebrate neural genes are expressed during neurogenesis in the annelid Platynereis dumerilii

SUMMARY The molecular mechanisms underlying the formation and patterning of the nervous system are relatively poorly understood for lophotrochozoans (like annelids) as compared with ecdysozoans (especially Drosophila ) and deuterostomes (especially vertebrates). Therefore, we have undertaken a candidate gene approach to study aspects of neurogenesis in a polychaete annelid Platynereis dumerilii . We determined the spatiotemporal expression for Platynereis orthologs of four genes ( SoxB, Churchill, prospero / Prox , and SoxC) known to play key roles in vertebrate neurogenesis. During Platynereis development, SoxB is expressed in the neuroectoderm and its expression switches off when committed neural precursors are formed. Subsequently, Prox is expressed in all differentiating neural precursors in the central and peripheral nervous systems. Finally, SoxC and Churchill are transcribed in patterns consistent with their involvement in neural differentiation. The expression patterns of Platynereis SoxB and Prox closely resemble those in Drosophila and vertebrates—this suggests that orthologs of these genes play similar neurogenic roles in all bilaterians. Whereas Platynereis SoxC , like its vertebrate orthologs, plays a role in neural cell differentiation, related genes in Drosophila do not appear to be involved in neurogenesis. Finally, conversely to Churchill in Platynereis , vertebrate orthologs of this gene are expressed during neuroectoderm formation, but not later during nerve cell differentiation; in the insect lineage, homologs of these genes have been secondarily lost. In spite of such instances of functional divergence or loss, the present study shows conspicuous similarities in the genetic control of neurogenesis among bilaterians. These commonalities suggest that key features of the genetic program for neurogenesis are ancestral to bilaterians.     

Neurogenesis in the spider: new insights from comparative analysis of morphological processes and gene expression patterns

While there is a detailed understanding of neurogenesis in insects and partially also in crustaceans, little is known about neurogenesis in chelicerates. In the spider Cupiennius salei Keyserling, 1877 (Chelicerata, Arachnida, Araneae) invaginating cell groups arise sequentially and in a stereotyped pattern comparable to the formation of neuroblasts in Drosophila melanogaster Meigen, 1830 (Insecta, Diptera, Cyclorrhapha, Drosophilidae). In addition, functional analysis revealed that in the spider homologues of the D. melanogaster proneural and neurogenic genes control the recruitment and singling out of neural precursors like in D. melanogaster. Although groups of cells, rather than individual cells, are singled out from the spider neuroectoderm which can thus not be homologized with the insect neuroblasts, similar genes seem to confer neural identity to the neural precursor cells of the spider. We show here that the pan-neural genes snail and the neural identity gene Krüppel are expressed in neural precursors in a heterogenous spatio-temporal pattern that is comparable to the pattern in D. melanogaster. Our data suggest that the early genetic network involved in recruitment and specification of neural precursors is conserved among insects and chelicerates.     

Neurogenesis in the water flea Daphnia magna (Crustacea, Branchiopoda) suggests different mechanisms of neuroblast formation in insects and crustaceans

Within euarthropods, the morphological and molecular mechanisms of early nervous system development have been analysed in insects and several representatives of chelicerates and myriapods, while data on crustaceans are fragmentary. Neural stem cells (neuroblasts) generate the nervous system in insects and in higher crustaceans (malacostracans); in the remaining euarthropod groups, the chelicerates (e.g. spiders) and myriapods (e.g. millipedes), neuroblasts are missing. In the latter taxa, groups of neural precursors segregate from the neuroectoderm and directly differentiate into neurons and glial cells. In all euarthropod groups, achaete–scute homologues are required for neuroblast/neural precursor group formation. In the insects Drosophila melanogaster and Tribolium castaneum achaete–scute homologues are initially expressed in clusters of cells (proneural clusters) in the neuroepithelium but expression becomes restricted to the future neuroblast. Subsequently genes such as snail and prospero are expressed in the neuroblasts which are required for asymmetric division and differentiation. In contrast to insects, malacostracan neuroblasts do not segregate into the embryo but remain in the outer neuroepithelium, similar to vertebrate neural stem cells. It has been suggested that neuroblasts are present in another crustacean group, the branchiopods, and that they also remain in the neuroepithelium. This raises the questions how the molecular mechanisms of neuroblast selection have been modified during crustacean and insect evolution and if the segregation or the maintenance of neuroblasts in the neuroepithelium represents the ancestral state. Here we take advantage of the recently published Daphnia pulex (branchiopod) genome and identify genes in Daphnia magna that are known to be required for the selection and asymmetric division of neuroblasts in the fruit fly D. melanogaster. We unambiguously identify neuroblasts in D. magna by molecular marker gene expression and division pattern. We show for the first time that branchiopod neuroblasts divide in the same pattern as insect and malacostracan neuroblasts. Furthermore, in contrast to D. melanogaster, neuroblasts are not selected from proneural clusters in the branchiopod. Snail rather than ASH is the first gene to be expressed in the nascent neuroblasts suggesting that ASH is not required for the selection of neuroblasts as in D. melanogaster. The prolonged expression of ASH in D. magna furthermore suggests that it is involved in the maintenance of the neuroblasts in the neuroepithelium. Based on these and additional data from various representatives of arthropods we conclude that the selection of neural precursors from proneural clusters as well as the segregation of neural precursors represents the ancestral state of neurogenesis in arthropods. We discuss that the derived characters of malacostracans and branchiopods – the absence of neuroblast segregation and proneural clusters – might be used to support or reject the possible groupings of paraphyletic crustaceans.     

A pulse of the Drosophila Hox protein Abdominal-A schedules the end of neural proliferation via neuroblast apoptosis

Postembryonic neuroblasts are stem cell-like precursors that generate most neurons of the adult Drosophila central nervous system (CNS). Their capacity to divide is modulated along the anterior-posterior body axis, but the mechanism underlying this is unclear. We use clonal analysis of identified precursors in the abdomen to show that neuron production stops because the cell death program is activated in the neuroblast while it is still engaged in the cell cycle. A burst of expression of the Hox protein Abdominal-A (AbdA) specifies the time at which apoptosis occurs, thereby determining the final number of progeny that each neuroblast generates. These studies identify a mechanism linking the Hox axial patterning system to neural proliferation, and this involves temporal regulation of precursor cell death rather than the cell cycle.     

Expression of pair rule gene orthologs in the blastoderm of a myriapod: evidence for pair rule-like mechanisms?

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: A hallmark of Drosophila segmentation is the stepwise subdivision of the body into smaller and smaller units, and finally into the segments. This is achieved by the function of the well-understood segmentation gene cascade. The first molecular sign of a segmented body appears with the action of the pair rule genes, which are expressed as transversal stripes in alternating segments. Drosophila development, however, is derived, and in most other arthropods only the anterior body is patterned (almost) simultaneously from a pre-existing field of cells; posterior segments are added sequentially from a posterior segment addition zone. A long-standing question is to what extent segmentation mechanisms known from Drosophila may be conserved in short-germ arthropods. Despite the derived developmental modes, it appears more likely that conserved mechanisms can be found in anterior patterning. RESULTS: Expression analysis of pair rule gene orthologs in the blastoderm of the pill millipede Glomeris marginata (Myriapoda: Diplopoda) suggests that these genes are generally involved in segmenting the anterior embryo. We find that the Glomeris pairberry-1 (pby-1) gene is expressed in a pair rule pattern that is also found in insects and a chelicerate, the mite Tetraynchus urticae. Other Glomeris pair rule gene orthologs are expressed in double segment wide domains in the blastoderm, which at subsequent stages split into two stripes in adjacent segments. CONCLUSIONS: The expression patterns of the millipede pair rule gene orthologs resemble pair rule patterning in Drosophila and other insects, and thus represent evidence for the presence of an ancestral pair rule-like mechanism in myriapods. We discuss the possibilities that blastoderm patterning may be conserved in long-germ and short-germ arthropods, and that a posterior double segmental mechanism may be present in short-germ arthropods.     

Neuroblast formation and patterning during early brain development in Drosophila

The Drosophila embryo provides a useful model system to study the mechanisms that lead to pattern and cell diversity in the central nervous system (CNS). The Drosophila CNS, which encompasses the brain and the ventral nerve cord, develops from a bilaterally symmetrical neuroectoderm, which gives rise to neural stem cells, called neuroblasts. The structure of the embryonic ventral nerve cord is relatively simple, consisting of a sequence of repeated segmental units (neuromeres), and the mechanisms controlling the formation and specification of the neuroblasts that form these neuromeres are quite well understood. Owing to the much higher complexity and hidden segmental organization of the brain, our understanding of its development is still rudimentary. Recent investigations on the expression and function of proneural genes, segmentation genes, dorsoventral-patterning genes and a number of other genes have provided new insight into the principles of neuroblast formation and patterning during embryonic development of the fly brain. Comparisons with the same processes in the trunk help us to understand what makes the brain different from the ventral nerve cord. Several parallels in early brain patterning between the fly and the vertebrate systems have become evident.     

Threshold-dependent BMP-mediated repression: a model for a conserved mechanism that patterns the neuroectoderm

Subdivision of the neuroectoderm into three rows of cells along the dorsal-ventral axis by neural identity genes is a highly conserved developmental process. While neural identity genes are expressed in remarkably similar patterns in vertebrates and invertebrates, previous work suggests that these patterns may be regulated by distinct upstream genetic pathways. Here we ask whether a potential conserved source of positional information provided by the BMP signaling contributes to patterning the neuroectoderm. We have addressed this question in two ways: First, we asked whether BMPs can act as bona fide morphogens to pattern the Drosophila neuroectoderm in a dose-dependent fashion, and second, we examined whether BMPs might act in a similar fashion in patterning the vertebrate neuroectoderm. In this study, we show that graded BMP signaling participates in organizing the neural axis in Drosophila by repressing expression of neural identity genes in a threshold-dependent fashion. We also provide evidence for a similar organizing activity of BMP signaling in chick neural plate explants, which may operate by the same double negative mechanism that acts earlier during neural induction. We propose that BMPs played an ancestral role in patterning the metazoan neuroectoderm by threshold-dependent repression of neural identity genes.     

Control of neural precursor specification by proneural proteins in the CNS of Drosophila.

Formation of neural precursors in Drosophila is determined by proneural genes. The distinctive pattern of expression of some genes of the achaete-scute complex in the embryonic neuroectoderm has prompted the speculation that they could also function in the specification of neural precursor identity in the CNS. To test this hypothesis, we have analysed the capacity of different proneural proteins to promote the development of a particular CNS precursor, the MP2 precursor. Our results indicate that: (i) all known proneural proteins are similarly able to support the formation of a neural precursor at the position of MP2; (ii) different proneural proteins promote the expression of different characteristics of MP2; and (iii) a totally normal specification of the MP2 fate can only be attained by the proneural genes achaete or scute.     

Unravelling the evolution of neural stem cells in arthropods: Notch signalling in neural stem cell development in the crustacean Daphnia magna

The genetic regulatory networks controlling major developmental processes seem to be conserved in bilaterians regardless of an independent or a common origin of the structures. This has been explained by the employment of a genetic toolkit that was repeatedly used during bilaterian evolution to build the various forms and body plans. However, it is not clear how genetic networks were incorporated into the formation of novel structures and how homologous genes can regulate the disparate morphological processes. Here we address this question by analysing the role of Notch signalling, which is part of the bilaterian toolkit, in neural stem cell evolution in arthropods. Within arthropods neural stem cells have evolved in the last common ancestor of insects and crustaceans (Tetraconata). We analyse here for the first time the role of Notch signalling in a crustacean, the branchiopod Daphnia magna, and show that it is required in neural stem cells for regulating the time of neural precursor production and for binary cell fate decisions in the ventral neuroectoderm. The function of Notch signalling has diverged in the ventral neuroectoderm of insects and crustaceans accompanied by changes in the morphogenetic processes. In the crustacean, Notch controlled mechanisms of neuroblast regulation have evolved that are surprisingly similar to vertebrates and thus present a remarkable case of parallel evolution. These new data on a representative of crustaceans complete the arthropod data set on Notch signalling in the nervous system and allow for reconstructing how the Notch signalling pathway has been co-opted from pre-existing structures to the development of the evolving neural stem cells in the Tetraconata ancestor.     

Comparative analysis of neurogenesis in the myriapod Glomeris marginata (Diplopoda) suggests more similarities to chelicerates than to insects

Molecular data suggest that myriapods are a basal arthropod group and may even be the sister group of chelicerates. To find morphological indications for this relationship we have analysed neurogenesis in the myriapod Glomeris marginata (Diplopoda). We show here that groups of neural precursors, rather than single cells as in insects, invaginate from the ventral neuroectoderm in a manner similar to that in the spider: invaginating cell groups arise sequentially and at stereotyped positions in the ventral neuroectoderm of Glomeris, and all cells of the neurogenic region seem to enter the neural pathway. Furthermore, we have identified an achaete-scute, a Delta and a Notch homologue in GLOMERIS: The genes are expressed in a pattern similar to the spider homologues and show more sequence similarity to the chelicerates than to the insects. We conclude that the myriapod pattern of neural precursor formation is compatible with the possibility of a chelicerate-myriapod sister group relationship.     

Expression and function of the empty spiracles gene in olfactory sense organ development of Drosophila melanogaster

In Drosophila, the cephalic gap gene empty spiracles plays key roles in embryonic patterning of the peripheral and central nervous system. During postembryonic development, it is involved in the development of central olfactory circuitry in the antennal lobe of the adult. However, its possible role in the postembryonic development of peripheral olfactory sense organs has not been investigated. Here, we show that empty spiracles acts in a subset of precursors that generate the olfactory sense organs of the adult antenna. All empty spiracles-expressing precursor cells co-express the proneural gene amos and the early patterning gene lozenge. Moreover, the expression of empty spiracles in these precursor cells is dependent on both amos and lozenge. Functional analysis reveals two distinct roles of empty spiracles in the development of olfactory sense organs. Genetic interaction studies in a lozenge-sensitized background uncover a requirement of empty spiracles in the formation of trichoid and basiconic olfactory sensilla. MARCM-based clonal mutant analysis reveals an additional role during axonal targeting of olfactory sensory neurons to glomeruli within the antennal lobe. Our findings on empty spiracles action in olfactory sense organ development complement previous studies that demonstrate its requirement in olfactory interneurons and, taken together with studies on the murine homologs of empty spiracles, suggest that conserved molecular genetic programs might be responsible for the formation of both peripheral and central olfactory circuitry in insects and mammals.     

The CNS midline cells coordinate proper cell cycle progression and identity determination of the Drosophila ventral neuroectoderm

The CNS midline cells, specified by the single-minded (sim) gene, are required for the proper patterning of the ventral CNS and epidermis, which are derived from the Drosophila ventral neuroectoderm. Defects in the sim mutant are characterized by the loss of the gene expression, which is required for the proper formation of the ventral neurons and epidermis, and by a decrease in the spacing of longitudinal and commissural axon tracks. Molecular and cellular mechanisms for these defects were analyzed to elucidate the precise role of the CNS midline cells in proper patterning of the ventral neuroectoderm during embryonic neurogenesis. These analyses showed that the ventral neuroectoderm in the sim mutant fails to carry out its proper formation and characteristic cell division cycle. This resulted in the loss of the dividing neuroectodermal cells that are located ventral to the CNS midline. The CNS midline cells are also required for the cell cycle-independent expression of the neural and epidermal markers. This indicates that the CNS midline cells are essential for the establishment and maintenance of the ventral epidermal and neuronal cell lineage by cell-cell interaction. On the other hand, the CNS midline cells do not cause extensive cell death in the ventral neuroectoderm. This study indicates that the CNS midline cells play important roles in the coordination of the proper cell cycle progression and the correct identity determination of the adjacent ventral neuroectoderm along the dorsoventral axis.     

Heads and tails: evolution of antero-posterior patterning in insects

In spite of their varied appearances, insects share a common body plan whose layout is established by patterning genes during embryogenesis. We understand in great molecular detail how the Drosophila embryo patterns its segments. However, Drosophila has a type of embryogenesis that is highly derived and varies extensively as compared to most insects. Therefore, the study of other insects is invaluable for piecing together how the ancestor of all insects established its segmented body plan, and how this process can be plastic during evolution. In this review, we discuss the evolution of Antero-Posterior (A-P) patterning mechanisms in insects. We first describe two distinct modes of insect development - long and short germ development - and how these two modes of patterning are achieved. We then summarize how A-P patterning occurs in the long-germ Drosophila, where most of our knowledge comes from, and in the well-studied short-germ insect, Tribolium. Finally, using examples from other insects, we highlight differences in patterns of expression, which suggest foci of evolutionary change.