The phylogenetic origin of oskar coincided with the origin of maternally provisioned germ plasm and pole cells at the base of the Holometabola.

ABSTRACT: The establishment of the germline is a critical, yet surprisingly evolutionarily labile, event in the development of sexually reproducing animals. In the fly Drosophila, germ cells acquire their fate early during development through the inheritance of the germ plasm, a specialized maternal cytoplasm localized at the posterior pole of the oocyte. The gene oskar (osk) is both necessary and sufficient for assembling this substance. Both maternal germ plasm and oskar are evolutionary novelties within the insects, as the germline is specified by zygotic induction in basally branching insects, and osk has until now only been detected in dipterans. In order to understand the origin of these evolutionary novelties, we used comparative genomics, parental RNAi, and gene expression analyses in multip

SUBMITTER: Lynch JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3084197 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature