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Professor Alistair McGregor's Outputs (72)

Developmental evolution in fast-forward: insect male genital diversification. (2024)
Journal Article
Nunes, M. D. S., & McGregor, A. P. (online). Developmental evolution in fast-forward: insect male genital diversification. Trends in Genetics, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2024.10.005

Insect male genitalia are among the fastest evolving structures of animals. Studying these changes among closely related species represents a powerful approach to dissect developmental processes and genetic mechanisms underlying phenotypic diversific... Read More about Developmental evolution in fast-forward: insect male genital diversification..

Evolutionary biology: Co-option and the evolution of morphological novelty. (2024)
Journal Article
Ridgway, A. M., & McGregor, A. P. (2024). Evolutionary biology: Co-option and the evolution of morphological novelty. Current Biology, 34(22), R1144-R1146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.10.031

The molecular mechanisms underlying evolution of morphological novelties are not well understood, although co-option is often inferred. A new study demonstrates that the partial co-option of the trichome gene regulatory network underlies the evolutio... Read More about Evolutionary biology: Co-option and the evolution of morphological novelty..

Venom gland organogenesis in the common house spider (2024)
Journal Article
Hassan, A., Blakeley, G., McGregor, A. P., & Zancolli, G. (2024). Venom gland organogenesis in the common house spider. Scientific Reports, 14(1), Article 15379. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-65336-2

Venom is a remarkable innovation found across the animal kingdom, yet the evolutionary origins of venom systems in various groups, including spiders, remain enigmatic. Here, we investigated the organogenesis of the venom apparatus in the common house... Read More about Venom gland organogenesis in the common house spider.

An atlas of spider development at single-cell resolution provides new insights into arthropod embryogenesis (2024)
Journal Article
Leite, D. J., Schönauer, A., Blakeley, G., Harper, A., Garcia-Castro, H., Baudouin-Gonzalez, L., Wang, R., Sarkis, N., Nikola, A. G., Koka, V. S. P., Kenny, N. J., Turetzek, N., Pechmann, M., Solana, J., & McGregor, A. P. (2024). An atlas of spider development at single-cell resolution provides new insights into arthropod embryogenesis. EvoDevo, 15(1), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13227-024-00224-4

Spiders are a diverse order of chelicerates that diverged from other arthropods over 500 million years ago. Research on spider embryogenesis, particularly studies using the common house spider Parasteatoda tepidariorum, has made important contributio... Read More about An atlas of spider development at single-cell resolution provides new insights into arthropod embryogenesis.

Looking across the gap: Understanding the evolution of eyes and vision among insects (2024)
Journal Article
Kittelmann, M., & McGregor, A. P. (2024). Looking across the gap: Understanding the evolution of eyes and vision among insects. BioEssays, 46(5), Article 2300240. https://doi.org/10.1002/bies.202300240

The compound eyes of insects exhibit stunning variation in size, structure, and function, which has allowed these animals to use their vision to adapt to a huge range of different environments and lifestyles, and evolve complex behaviors. Much of our... Read More about Looking across the gap: Understanding the evolution of eyes and vision among insects.

Evolution of compound eye morphology underlies differences in vision between closely related Drosophila species (2024)
Journal Article
Buffry, A. D., Currea, J. P., Franke-Gerth, F. A., Palavalli-Nettimi, R., Bodey, A. J., Rau, C., …Kittelmann, M. (2024). Evolution of compound eye morphology underlies differences in vision between closely related Drosophila species. BMC Biology, 22(1), Article 67. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-024-01864-7

Background: Insects have evolved complex visual systems and display an astonishing range of adaptations for diverse ecological niches. Species of Drosophila melanogaster subgroup exhibit extensive intra- and interspecific differences in compound eye... Read More about Evolution of compound eye morphology underlies differences in vision between closely related Drosophila species.

Sox21b underlies the rapid diversification of a novel male genital structure between Drosophila species (2024)
Journal Article
Ridgway, A. M., Hood, E. J., Jimenez, J. F., Nunes, M. D., & McGregor, A. P. (2024). Sox21b underlies the rapid diversification of a novel male genital structure between Drosophila species. Current Biology, 34(5), 1114-1121. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.01.022

The emergence and diversification of morphological novelties is a major feature of animal evolution. However, relatively little is known about the genetic basis of the evolution of novel structures and the mechanisms underlying their diversification... Read More about Sox21b underlies the rapid diversification of a novel male genital structure between Drosophila species.

Evolution of the Spider Homeobox Gene Repertoire by Tandem and Whole Genome Duplication (2023)
Journal Article
Aase-Remedios, M. E., Janssen, R., Leite, D. J., Sumner-Rooney, L., & McGregor, A. P. (2023). Evolution of the Spider Homeobox Gene Repertoire by Tandem and Whole Genome Duplication. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 40(12), Article msad239. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msad239

Gene duplication generates new genetic material that can contribute to the evolution of gene regulatory networks and phenotypes. Duplicated genes can undergo subfunctionalization to partition ancestral functions and/or neofunctionalization to assume... Read More about Evolution of the Spider Homeobox Gene Repertoire by Tandem and Whole Genome Duplication.

Characterisation of the role and regulation of Ultrabithorax in sculpting fine-scale leg morphology (2023)
Journal Article
Buffry, A. D., Kittelmann, S., & McGregor, A. P. (2023). Characterisation of the role and regulation of Ultrabithorax in sculpting fine-scale leg morphology. Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology, 11, Article 1119221. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2023.1119221

Hox genes are expressed during embryogenesis and determine the regional identity of animal bodies along the antero-posterior axis. However, they also function post-embryonically to sculpt fine-scale morphology. To better understand how Hox genes are... Read More about Characterisation of the role and regulation of Ultrabithorax in sculpting fine-scale leg morphology.

Regulation of Eye Determination and Regionalization in the Spider Parasteatoda tepidariorum (2022)
Journal Article
Baudouin-Gonzalez, L., Harper, A., McGregor, A. P., & Sumner-Rooney, L. (2022). Regulation of Eye Determination and Regionalization in the Spider Parasteatoda tepidariorum. Cells, 11(4), Article 631. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells11040631

Animal visual systems are enormously diverse, but their development appears to be controlled by a set of conserved retinal determination genes (RDGs). Spiders are particular masters of visual system innovation, and offer an excellent opportunity to s... Read More about Regulation of Eye Determination and Regionalization in the Spider Parasteatoda tepidariorum.

Gene content evolution in the arthropods (2020)
Journal Article
Thomas, G., Dohmen, E., Hughes, D., Murali, S., Poelchau, M., Glastad, K., Anstead, C., Ayoub, N., Batterham, P., Bellair, M., Binford, G., Chao, H., Chen, Y., Childers, C., Dinh, H., Doddapaneni, H., Duan, J., Dugan, S., Esposito, L., Friedrich, M., …Richards, S. (2020). Gene content evolution in the arthropods. Genome Biology, 21(1), https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-019-1925-7