A multifunctional Wnt regulator underlies the evolution of rodent stripe patterns.

Autor: Johnson MR; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA., Li S; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA., Guerrero-Juarez CF; Carle Illinois College of Medicine, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.; Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.; Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.; Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.; NSF-Simons Center for Multiscale Cell Fate Research, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA., Miller P; Center for Computational Biology, Flatiron Institute, New York, NY, USA., Brack BJ; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA., Mereby SA; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA., Moreno JA; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA., Feigin CY; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA., Gaska J; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA., Rivera-Perez JA; Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, MA, USA., Nie Q; Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.; Department of Mathematics, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.; Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.; NSF-Simons Center for Multiscale Cell Fate Research, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA., Ploss A; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA., Shvartsman SY; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.; Center for Computational Biology, Flatiron Institute, New York, NY, USA.; The Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA., Mallarino R; Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA. rmallarino@princeton.edu.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Nature ecology & evolution [Nat Ecol Evol] 2023 Dec; Vol. 7 (12), pp. 2143-2159. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Oct 09.
DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02213-7
Abstrakt: Animal pigment patterns are excellent models to elucidate mechanisms of biological organization. Although theoretical simulations, such as Turing reaction-diffusion systems, recapitulate many animal patterns, they are insufficient to account for those showing a high degree of spatial organization and reproducibility. Here, we study the coat of the African striped mouse (Rhabdomys pumilio) to uncover how periodic stripes form. Combining transcriptomics, mathematical modelling and mouse transgenics, we show that the Wnt modulator Sfrp2 regulates the distribution of hair follicles and establishes an embryonic prepattern that foreshadows pigment stripes. Moreover, by developing in vivo gene editing in striped mice, we find that Sfrp2 knockout is sufficient to alter the stripe pattern. Strikingly, mutants exhibited changes in pigmentation, revealing that Sfrp2 also regulates hair colour. Lastly, through evolutionary analyses, we find that striped mice have evolved lineage-specific changes in regulatory elements surrounding Sfrp2, many of which may be implicated in modulating the expression of this gene. Altogether, our results show that a single factor controls coat pattern formation by acting both as an orienting signalling mechanism and a modulator of pigmentation. More broadly, our work provides insights into how spatial patterns are established in developing embryos and the mechanisms by which phenotypic novelty originates.
(© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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