The drastic transformation that butterflies and some other insects go through as their larvae mature has been shown by Skoltech researchers. The pupal stage's evolutionary origins and genetic mechanisms are not completely understood today. The study was published in a scientific journal.
The study states that certain insects, including beetles, flies, bees, and moths, go through a radical during the pupal stage in their development. We looked at which genes were active and inactive in the pupae of nine insect species and found that their pattern was similar to what happens in embryology.
New organs are built from scratch in embryology. At the egg stage, the embryonic gene program kicks in and then is suppressed in the later stages of the insect's life cycle. According to the researchers, this program is reborn at the pupal stage with the same pattern of genes activated.
Professor Gelfand said there were two leading hypotheses to explain this. There is a chance that the end of the pupal stage is the end of embryogenesis in these insects. It is possible that pupation is an elaborate instance of molting. We will continue our research to find out what the answer is.
The team applies bioinformatic analysis to previous published transcriptomic data. The genes in the DNA are not targeted in these reports, but rather theirRNA copies are used to implement the instructions in those genes. If you know how many copies of a particular gene are being made, you can determine if that particular gene is active or not.
According to the researchers, they will now seek new, more specific pupal gene expression patterns by comparing the data between different species to shed more light on how this bizarre stage in insect development came about.
There is more information about the research done by Ozerova and her team in the Scientific Reports.
Journal information: Scientific Reports
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