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Evo-devo

Shedding degeneracies

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 5, page 488 (2004)Cite this article

Analyses of peptide release in larvae that are about to undergo ecdysis showed that ETH was secreted even when EH was not, and indeed, even when EH-expressing neurons were genetically ablated. In fact, ecdysis occurred almost normally without EH neurons, although these EH knockout larvae subsequently died. So, the initial secretion of ETH might not need EH after all, and EH might not be essential for ecdysis. It turns out that genetically ablating CCAP-expressing neurons also has little effect on ecdysis behaviour. The legitimate suspicion of genetic degeneracy was strengthened by the more severe defects in ecdysis and its timing in the CCAP+EH double knockouts than in either single knockout. This is an unexpected find as EH is always placed upstream of CCAP.

The data and the proposed molecular model of ecdysis go beyond this brief explanation. What is noteworthy is not so much that degeneracy exists in a biological system — it often does — but that it is as complete as this work seems to indicate.

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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Clarke, A. C., del Campo, M. L. & Ewer, J. Neuroendocrine control of larval ecdysis behavior in Drosophila: complex regulation by partially redundant neuropeptides. J. Neurosci. 24, 4283–4292 (2004)

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  1. Tanita Casci
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Casci, T. Shedding degeneracies. Nat Rev Genet 5, 488 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1394

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