Evolution of maternal and zygotic mRNA complements in the early Drosophila embryo.

ABSTRACT: The earliest stages of animal development are controlled by maternally deposited mRNA transcripts and proteins. Once the zygote is able to transcribe its own genome, maternal transcripts are degraded, in a tightly regulated process known as the maternal to zygotic transition (MZT). While this process has been well-studied within model species, we have little knowledge of how the pools of maternal and zygotic transcripts evolve. To characterize the evolutionary dynamics and functional constraints on early embryonic expression, we created a transcriptomic dataset for 14 Drosophila species spanning over 50 million years of evolution, at developmental stages before and after the MZT, and compared our results with a previously published Aedes aegypti developmental time course. We found deep con

SUBMITTER: Atallah J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6312346 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature