Notch Signaling in Insect Development: A Simple Pathway with Diverse Functions

Abstract

Notch signaling is an evolutionarily conserved pathway which functions between adjacent cells to establish their distinct identities. Despite operating in a simple mechanism, Notch signaling plays remarkably diverse roles in development to regulate cell fate determination, organ growth and tissue patterning. While initially discovered and characterized in the model insect Drosophila melanogaster, recent studies across various insect species have revealed the broad involvement of Notch signaling in shaping insect tissues. This review focuses on providing a comprehensive picture regarding the roles of the Notch pathway in insect development. The roles of Notch in the formation and patterning of the insect embryo, wing, leg, ovary and several specific structures, as well as in physiological responses, are summarized. These results are discussed within the developmental context, aiming to deepen our understanding of the diversified functions of the Notch signaling pathway in different insect species.

Evolution and Function of the Notch Signaling Pathway: An Invertebrate Perspective

“…At first glance, the extreme versatility and pleiotropy of Notch signaling seems to make the task of reconstructing an evolutionary history of its involvement in metazoan development rather daunting. Although many reviews have summarized the function of Notch from different perspectives, there are still many areas where the function of Notch components is not well understood [ 3 , 10 ]. This review summarizes the past and present studies that have revealed some of the mechanisms underlying Notch signaling in invertebrate neurodevelopment and regeneration by using a few relatively typical species [ 44 , 52 , 245 ].…”

“…Activation of the Notch receptor is irreversible because it involves a proteolysis-mediated release of the Notch intracellular domain (NICD), which translocates to the nucleus and associates with a DNA-bound protein. Three primary modes of Notch actions have been discovered: lateral inhibition, boundary induction, and lineage decision [ 3 ]. Although each Notch molecule only signals once without being amplified by secondary messengers, Notch signaling is surprisingly robust in most tissues [ 4 ].…”

Unraveling the modulatory manner and function of circRNAs in the Asian honey bee larval guts

“…Moreover, it also suggested that circRNAs can regulate the same pathway in different regulatory ways (regulating the transcription of parental genes and ceRNA mechanism). Insect Notch signaling plays remarkably diverse roles in development to regulate cell fate determination, organ growth and tissue patterning ( Chen Y. et al, 2023 ). And the Notch signaling plays essential roles during ovary development ( Shcherbata et al, 2004 ), leg growth ( Cordoba and Estella, 2020 ), and wing development ( Blair, 2007 ) in Drosophila melanogaster .…”