Evidence for active maintenance of phylotranscriptomic hourglass patterns in animal and plant embryogenesis

Hajk-Georg Drost, Alexander Gabel, Ivo Grosse (Lead / Corresponding author), Marcel Quint (Lead / Corresponding author)

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

82 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The developmental hourglass model has been used to describe the morphological transitions of related species throughout embryogenesis. Recently, quantifiable approaches combining transcriptomic and evolutionary information provided novel evidence for the presence of a phylotranscriptomic hourglass pattern across kingdoms. As its biological function is unknown it remains speculative whether this pattern is functional or merely represents a nonfunctional evolutionary relic. The latter would seriously hamper future experimental approaches designed to test hypotheses regarding its function. Here, we address this question by generating transcriptome divergence index (TDI) profiles across embryogenesis of Danio rerio, Drosophila melanogaster, and Arabidopsis thaliana. To enable meaningful evaluation of the resulting patterns, we develop a statistical test that specifically assesses potential hourglass patterns. Based on this objective measure we find that two of these profiles follow a statistically significant hourglass pattern with the most conserved transcriptomes in the phylotypic periods. As the TDI considers only recent evolutionary signals, this indicates that the phylotranscriptomic hourglass pattern is not a rudiment but possibly actively maintained, implicating the existence of some linked biological function associated with embryogenesis in extant species.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1221-1231
Number of pages11
JournalMolecular Biology and Evolution
Volume32
Issue number5
Early online date27 Jan 2015
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2015

Keywords

  • developmental hourglass
  • embryogenesis
  • evo-devo
  • phylotranscriptomics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
  • Molecular Biology
  • Genetics

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