Department of Biological Sciences, Wellesley College, 106 Central St., Wellesley, MA 02481, United States.
Mech Dev. 2011 Sep-Dec;128(7-10):342-58. doi: 10.1016/j.mod.2011.07.001. Epub 2011 Jul 23.
Many organisms across the Metazoa have regenerative abilities with potentially conserved genetic mechanisms that can enlighten both medicine and evolutionary studies. Here, the role of canonical Wnt signaling was examined in the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum in order to explore its role during metamorphosis and larval leg regeneration. Double-stranded RNA mediated silencing of Wnt-1 signaling resulted in a loss of wings and appendages with a dramatic reduction in width, indicating that the Wnt-1 signaling pathway is necessary for proper post-embryonic appendage development in T. castaneum. Furthermore, disruption of canonical Wnt signaling led to the complete impairment of limb regeneration in T. castaneum. Our findings suggest that Wnt-1 signaling is a conserved mechanism for appendage development across all holometabolous insects and indicate that the role of Wnt-1 signaling in limb regeneration has been retained across all insects as various modes of limb development evolved. Importantly, this study shows that the availability of the genome sequence and the ease of performing leg ablations make Tribolium an excellent holometabolous insect model for studying regeneration.
许多后生动物都具有再生能力，其潜在的保守遗传机制可以为医学和进化研究提供启示。在这里，研究人员研究了模式生物赤拟谷盗中经典 Wnt 信号通路在变态和幼虫腿再生中的作用。通过双链 RNA 介导的 Wnt-1 信号沉默导致翅膀和附肢缺失，宽度显著减小，表明 Wnt-1 信号通路对于赤拟谷盗后胚胎期附肢发育是必需的。此外，破坏经典 Wnt 信号通路导致赤拟谷盗完全丧失肢体再生能力。我们的研究结果表明，Wnt-1 信号通路是所有完全变态昆虫附肢发育的保守机制，并表明 Wnt-1 信号通路在肢体再生中的作用在所有昆虫中都得到了保留，因为各种肢体发育模式已经进化。重要的是，这项研究表明，基因组序列的可用性和腿部切除的容易性使赤拟谷盗成为研究再生的优秀完全变态昆虫模型。
