The Red Flour Beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Coleoptera): A Model for Studies of Development and Pest Biology: Figure 1.

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONTribolium castaneum is a small, low-maintenance beetle that has emerged as a sophisticated model system for studying the evolution of development and that complements (in some cases, even rivals) Drosophila for functional genetic analysis of basic biological questions. Although Tribolium and Drosophila are both holometabolous insects, they differ fundamentally in larval and adult morphology. Even generally conserved developmental features, such as body segmentation, are achieved by quite different means. Thus, comparison of developmental mechanisms between these two insects can address many interesting questions concerning the evolution of morphology and other characters. Genetic tools available for Tribolium include genetic maps for visible and molecular markers, chromosomal rearrangements that enable lethal mutations to be balanced in true-breeding stocks, transposon-based transformation systems, a completed and annotated genome sequence, and systemic RNA interference (RNAi), which makes it possible to knock down any given gene and even particular splice variants in the offspring or in any tissue of the injected animal. Inactivating gene functions at various developmental stages provides new opportunities to investigate post-embryonic development, as well as larval and adult physiology, including hormonal control, host-parasite interactions, and pesticide resistance.

Novel functions for Dorsocross in epithelial morphogenesis in the beetle Tribolium castaneum

“…San Bernardino (SB) wild type (Brown et al, 2009), nuclear GFP (nGFP) (Sarrazin et al, 2012), and heart (G04609) and serosa (G12424) enhancer trap (Koelzer et al, 2014) lines were kept under standard culturing conditions (Brown et al, 2009) at 30°C, 40% RH. SB and nGFP were used for in situ hybridization, while the nGFP and enhancer trap lines were used for live imaging.…”

“…All primer sequences for probes and dsRNA are listed in Table S1. Antibody staining was performed using standard protocols (Brown et al, 2009) with an anti-phospho-Smad1/5 rabbit antibody (Cell Signaling, 41D10, used at 1:100) and secondary detection with anti-rabbit alkaline phosphatase (Cell Signaling,7054,used at 1:200). After in situ hybridization or antibody staining, embryos were mounted in Vectashield mountant containing DAPI for nuclear counterstaining (Vector Laboratories).…”

Non-invasive long-term fluorescence live imaging of Tribolium castaneum embryos

“…Rearing and embryo collection were performed as described previously (Brown et al, 2009); parameters are provided in supplementary material Table S1.…”

“…Although around one million species from the insect order have been described (Patel, 2000), the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has an almost unchallenged status in the insect developmental biology community. The red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum is considered an emerging model organism and has become the second most important insect species after Drosophila (Klingler, 2004;Schröder et al, 2008;Brown et al, 2009). In contrast to Drosophila, Tribolium exhibits short-germ development, in which segments are added sequentially to the posterior growth zone (Liu and Kaufman, 2005;Roth and Hartenstein, 2008;Schröder et al, 2008), and embryonic leg development (Grossmann and Prpic, 2012).…”

Triboliumembryo morphogenesis

“…5,6 One such prominent case is the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum, which is arguably the second best studied insect after Drosophila melanogaster. 7,8 Starting with the seminal work by the geneticist Alexander Sokoloff in the 1960s, 9 Tribolium has become an increasingly popular and powerful system for developmental genetic studies. Tribolium lends itself to forward and reverse genetic approaches, [10][11][12][13] is amenable to transgenic manipulations, [14][15][16][17] and is supported by a sequenced genome and other resources for genome-wide research.…”