Ivan Mendez Gonzalez - Rebeiz Lab
Friday, February 19, 2021
12:10 PM
Virtual Zoom seminar
Abstract:
Changes in the expression of Hox genes have long been considered a main driver for the evolution of animal morphology. Surprisingly, concrete examples about the kind of mutations driving such expression differences are limited. In some fruit fly species, the Hox gene Abd-B regulates the production of melanin covering the most posterior segments of the male’s abdomen. I am investigating whether the diversification of abdominal pigmentation patterns occurred through the accumulation of mutations affecting Abd-B expression. I have identified a cis-regulatory element (CRE) in D. melanogaster which, when deleted, disrupts Abd-B late expression and the production of melanin. I propose that the evolution of this CRE resulted in a temporal expansion of Abd-B expression exclusive to certain species. Subsequent mutations in other lineages might have suppressed this CRE activity, leading to the independent loss of abdominal melanism. Manipulating this CRE across different species will offer an excellent opportunity to causally test how animal morphology evolves in response to changes in the expression of Hox-genes.