Analysis in Drosophila suggests that evolutionary changes in the spatial regulation of the transcription factor doublesex play a key role in the origin, diversification, and loss of sex-specific structures.

Similar selective pressures can lead to independent origin of similar morphological structures in multiple evolutionary lineages. Developmental mechanisms underlying convergent evolution remain poorly understood. In this report, we show that similar sex comb morphology in closely related Drosophila species is produced by different cellular mechanisms. The sex comb is a recently evolved, male-specific array of modified bristles derived from transverse bristle rows found on the first thoracic legs in both sexes. ''Longitudinal'' sex combs oriented along the proximo-distal leg axis evolved independently in several Drosophila lineages. We show that in some of these lineages, sex combs originate as one or several transverse bristle rows that subsequently rotate 90°and align to form a single longitudinal row. In other species, bristle cells that make up the sex combs arise in their final longitudinal orientation. Thus, sex combs can develop through either sexspecific patterning of bristle precursor cells or male-specific morphogenesis of sexually monomorphic precursors. Surprisingly, the two mechanisms produce nearly identical morphology in some species. Phylogenetic analysis shows that each of these mechanisms has probably evolved repeatedly in different Drosophila lineages, suggesting that selection can recruit different cellular processes to produce similar functional solutions. Convergent evolution ͉ Morphogenesis ͉ Sexual dimorphism

Metamorphosis (Gr. meta- "change" + morphe "form") as a biological process is generally attributed to a subset of animals: most famously insects and amphibians, but some fish and many marine invertebrates as well. We held a symposium at the 2006 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) annual meeting in Orlando, FL (USA) to discuss metamorphosis in a comparative context. Specifically, we considered the possibility that the term "metamorphosis" could be rightly applied to non-animals as well, including fungi, flowering plants, and some marine algae. Clearly, the answer depends upon how metamorphosis is defined. As we participants differed (sometimes quite substantially) in how we defined the term, we decided to present each of our conceptions of metamorphosis in 1 place, rather than attempting to agree on a single consensus definition. Herein we have gathered together our various definitions of metamorphosis, and offer an analysis that highlights some of the main similarities and differences among them. We present this article not only as an introduction to this symposium volume, but also as a reference tool that can be used by others interested in metamorphosis. Ultimately, we hope that this article-and the volume as a whole-will represent a springboard for further investigations into the surprisingly deep mechanistic similarities among independently evolved life cycle transitions across kingdoms.

The tobacco hornworm Manduca sexta, like many holometabolous insects, makes two versions of its thoracic legs. The simple legs of the larva are formed during embryogenesis, but then are transformed into the more complex adult legs at metamorphosis. To elucidate the molecular patterning mechanism underlying this biphasic development, we examined the expression patterns of five genes known to be involved in patterning the proximal-distal axis in insect legs. In the developing larval leg of Manduca, the early patterning genes Distal-less and Extradenticle are already expressed in patterns comparable to the adult legs of other insects. In contrast, Bric-a-brac and dachshund are expressed in patterns similar to transient patterns observed during early stages of leg development in Drosophila. During metamorphosis of the leg, the two genes finally develop mature expression patterns. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that the larval leg morphology is produced by a transient arrest in the conserved adult leg patterning process in insects. In addition, we find that, during the adult leg development, some cells in the leg express the patterning genes de novo suggesting that the remodeling of the leg involves changes in the patterning gene regulation.

During metamorphosis of the tobacco hornworm Manduca sexta, the simple thoracic legs of the larva are remodeled into the more complex adult legs. Most of the adult leg epidermis derives from the adult primordia, small sets of epidermal cells located in specific regions of the larval leg, which proliferate rapidly in the final larval instar. In contrast, the contribution of the epidermal cells outside the primordia is unknown. In this study we have determined their contribution to the adult leg by labeling them with 5-bromodeoxyuridine (BUdR) and following their fate. Although the labeled cells diminished drastically in number, small groups of these cells persisted into the midpupal stage suggesting that they do contribute to the adult leg epidermis. We also found that during the wandering stage the adult primordia went through active proliferation and very little cell death, while the cells outside the primordia went through extensive cell death accounting for the decrease in their number. Our results indicate that two distinct cell populations exist outside the adult primordia. Most cells belong to the first population, which is larval-specific and disappears through apoptosis early in metamorphosis. The second population consists of polymorphic cells that contribute to the larval, pupal and adult leg epidermis.

Innate behaviors consist of a succession of genetically-hardwired motor and physiological subprograms that can be coupled to drastic morphogenetic changes. How these integrative responses are orchestrated is not completely understood. Here, we provide insight into these mechanisms by studying pupariation, a multi-step innate behavior of Drosophila larvae that is critical for survival during metamorphosis. We find that the steroid-hormone ecdysone triggers parallel pupariation neuromotor and morphogenetic subprograms, which include the induction of the relaxin-peptide hormone, Dilp8, in the epidermis. Dilp8 acts on six Lgr3-positive thoracic interneurons to couple both subprograms in time and to instruct neuromotor subprogram switching during behavior. Our work reveals that interorgan feedback gates progression between subunits of an innate behavior and points to an ancestral neuromodulatory function of relaxin signaling.

Gene families often consist of members with diverse expression domains reflecting their functions in a wide variety of tissues. However, how the expression of individual members, and thus their tissue-specific functions, diversified during the course of gene family expansion is not well understood. In this study, we approached this question through the analysis of the duplication history and transcriptional evolution of a rapidly expanding subfamily of insect Ly6 genes. We analyzed different insect genomes and identified seven Ly6 genes that have originated from a single ancestor through sequential duplication within the higher Diptera. We then determined how the original embryonic expression pattern of the founding gene diversified by characterizing its tissue-specific expression in the beetle Tribolium castaneum, the butterfly Bicyclus anynana, and the mosquito Anopheles stephensi and those of its duplicates in three higher dipteran species, representing various stages of the duplication history (Megaselia abdita, Ceratitis capitata, and Drosophila melanogaster). Our results revealed that frequent neofunctionalization episodes contributed to the increased expression breadth of this subfamily and that these events occurred after duplication and speciation events at comparable frequencies. In addition, at each duplication node, we consistently found asymmetric expression divergence. One paralog inherited most of the tissue-specificities of the founder gene, whereas the other paralog evolved drastically reduced expression domains. Our approach attests to the power of combining a well-established duplication history with a comprehensive coverage of representative species in acquiring unequivocal information about the dynamics of gene expression evolution in gene families.

Pairs of duplicated genes generally display a combination of conserved expression patterns inherited from their unduplicated ancestor and newly acquired domains. However, how the cis-regulatory architecture of duplicated loci evolves to produce these expression patterns is poorly understood. We have directly examined the gene-regulatory evolution of two tandem duplicates, the Drosophila Ly6 genes CG9336 and CG9338, which arose at the base of the drosophilids between 40 and 60 Ma. Comparing the expression patterns of the two paralogs in four Drosophila species with that of the unduplicated ortholog in the tephritid Ceratitis capitata, we show that they diverged from each other as well as from the unduplicated ortholog. Moreover, the expression divergence appears to have occurred close to the duplication event and also more recently in a lineage-specific manner. The comparison of the tissue-specific cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) controlling the paralog expression in the four Drosophila species indicates that diverse cis-regulatory mechanisms, including the novel tissue-specific enhancers, differential inactivation, and enhancer sharing, contributed to the expression evolution. Our analysis also reveals a surprisingly variable cis-regulatory architecture, in which the CRMs driving conserved expression domains change in number, location, and specificity. Altogether, this study provides a detailed historical account that uncovers a highly dynamic picture of how the paralog expression patterns and their underlying cis-regulatory landscape evolve. We argue that our findings will encourage studying cis-regulatory evolution at the whole-locus level to understand how interactions between enhancers and other regulatory levels shape the evolution of gene expression.