Project (Gregor Bucher)


The quest for genes involved in the evolution of holometaboly

Background: Much of the evolutionary change is based on gradual adaptation of an organism to a changing environment leading to an ongoing flow of minor modifications. However, some adaptations open up new opportunities and therefore have profound influence on the clade’s evolutionary success. Such evolutionary innovations (sometimes called key innovations) are rare but are thought to be the basis for major radiations. Hence, one of the fundamental questions in evolutionary biology is, how key innovations evolved and what genomic changes drove or accompanied their emergence. One of the most successful innovations of the insect clade is the holometabolous life cycle. It led to an impressive radiation such that 70 – 80 % of all extant arthropod species are holometabola including the hyperdiverse orders Coleoptera, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera and Diptera.
In collaboration with Prof. Mario Stanke (Greifswald), we want to identify the genomic innovations associated with holometaboly by capitalizing on the increasing availability of high quality insect genomes and the functional tool kit of our model system T.castaneum including genome editing, transgenesis and genome wide RNAi screening and our expertise in analyzing developmental phenotypes during embryonic, metamorphic and brain development. Our collaboration partner will enhance the bioinformatics tools for consistent and accurate comparative genome annotations to create an insect genome annotation resource that is tailored for the comparative analysis of protein-coding genes to detect evolutionary patterns. The aim of my lab is to identify from this resource coding genes that have undergone impactful changes during the emergence of holometaboly. From this set, we will to identify those genes that are required for holometabola-specific developmental processes. To that end, we will screen all these genes by RNAi and add in-depth functional analyses for a few of them with respect to brain and/or epidermal development. This project will lead to a genome-wide view on the genetic changes associated with an insect key innovation and can identify the function of novel regulators involved in holometabolan development.


The project will take place as part of the priority program of the German Research Foundation “GEvol – Genomic Basis of Evolutionary Innovation (http://www.g-evol.com/) (funding decision pending)

Homepage Research Group

http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~gbucher1/index.html



Focus for phenotypic analysis with respect to brain development:

Farnworth MS, Eckermann K, Bucher G (2020) Sequence heterochrony led to a gain of functionality in an immature stage of the central complex: a fly-beetle insight Plos Biology 2019.12.20.883900

Koniszewski*, NDB, Kollmann* M, Bigham M, Farnworth M, He B, Büscher M, Hütteroth W, Binzer M, Schachtner J, Bucher, G. The insect central complex as model for heterochronic brain development-background, concepts, and tools. Dev. Genes Evol. 2016;226:209-19.

He B, Büscher M, Farnworth M.S, Strobl F, Stelzer E, Koniszewski NDB, Mühlen D, Bucher G (2019) An ancestral apical brain region contributes to the central complex under the control of foxQ2 in the beetle Tribolium eLife 2019;8:e49065



Genome wide RNAi in the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum:

Hakeemi* S, Ansari*, Teuscher*, Weißkopf*, Großmann, Kessel, Dönitz, Siemanowski, Wan, Schultheis, Frasch, Roth, Schoppmeier, Klingler, Bucher G (2022) Large portion of essential genes is missed by screening either fly or beetle indicating unexpected diversity of insect gene function BMC Biology accepted

Schmitt-Engel, C., Schultheis, D., Schwirz, J., Ströhlein, N., Troelenberg, N., Majumdar, U., Dao, V.A., Grossmann, D., Richter, T., Tech, M., Dönitz, J., Gerischer, L., Theis, M., Schild, I., Trauner, J., Koniszewski, N.D.B., Küster, E., Kittelmann, S., Hu, Y., Lehmann, S., Siemanowski, J., Ulrich, J., Panfilio, K.A., Schröder, R., Morgenstern, B., Stanke, M., Buchhholz, F., Frasch, M., Roth, S., Wimmer, E.A., Schoppmeier*, M., Klingler*, M., Bucher*, G., (2015). The iBeetle large-scale RNAi screen reveals gene functions for insect development and physiology. Nat. Commun. 6, 7822. doi:10.1038/ncomms8822