Differences in early transcription factor upregulation underlie socially-induced developmental plasticity in the Australian black field cricket — ASN Events
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Differences in early transcription factor upregulation underlie socially-induced developmental plasticity in the Australian black field cricket (#205)

Zhiliang Chen 1 , Michael M Kasumovic 2 , Marc Wilkins 1 3
  1. Systems Biology Initiative, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
  2. Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
  3. School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia

Background

Juvenile developmental trajectories in the Australian black-field cricket (Teleogryllus commodus) are influenced by a whole suite of biotic and abiotic factors. Male and female individuals alter their developmental trajectory, and therefore their adult morphology and behaviour, as a consequence of the calls they hear during maturation. The ecological and evolutionary consequences of this developmental plasticity are well understood. However, we have a poor understanding of the underlying mechanisms controlling early developmental decisions. Here we use RNA-seq to assemble a transcriptome for the black-field cricket. We used our transcriptome to explore differences in the transcription factors expressed in the brains of last juvenile instar of males and females reared in two different ecologically relevant social environments sampled at two time points.

Results

We assembled the T.commodus transcriptome using a total number of 489.7 million RNA-seq reads and three assemblers, Trans-ABySS, Velvet-Oases and Trinity. Among the three assemblers, Velvet-Oases assembled 80,476 transcripts, including the longest contig of 49,365 bp, a highest average contig length of 2,484 bp, and a highest number of 47,763 (59.2%) transcripts with significant similarity to Drosophila melanogaster isoforms. The differential expression analysis of the transcripts demonstrates that both treatment groups demonstrated an up-regulation of transcripts associated with moulting later in development. Individuals exposed to cricket calls up-regulated 17 sexual developmental associated transcription factors only in the earlier time while the individuals in the silent (control) treatment up-regulated 12 of this group of transcription factors only in the later time point. A number of transcription factors associated with developmental maturation and neuronal development were also found up regulated earlier in the individuals exposed to cricket calls.

Conclusions

Our results demonstrate that individual developmental trajectories and adult behaviours are associated with differences in early expression of transcription factors expressed as a consequence of ecologically relevant stimuli.