Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Livraghi, Luca
• Hanly, Joseph J
• Van Bellghem, Steven M
• Montejo-Kovacevich, Gabriela
• van der Heijden, Eva Sm
• Loh, Ling Sheng
• Ren, Anna
• Warren, Ian A
• Lewis, James J
• Concha, Carolina
• Hebberecht, Laura
• Wright, Charlotte J
• Walker, Jonah M
• Foley, Jessica
• Goldberg, Zachary H
• Arenas-Castro, Henry
• Salazar, Camilo
• Perry, Michael W
• Papa, Riccardo
• Martin, Arnaud
• McMillan, W Owen
• Jiggins, Chris D

Titel

Cortex cis -regulatory switches establish scale colour identity and pattern diversity in Heliconius

Ist Teil von

• eLife, 2021-07, Vol.10

Ort / Verlag

England: eLife Science Publications, Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2021

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• In butterflies, wing colour pattern diversity and scale types are controlled by a few genes of large effect that regulate colour pattern switches between morphs and species across a large mimetic radiation. One of these genes, , has been repeatedly associated with colour pattern evolution in butterflies. Here we carried out CRISPR knockouts in multiple species and show that is a major determinant of scale cell identity. Chromatin accessibility profiling and introgression scans identified -regulatory regions associated with discrete phenotypic switches. CRISPR perturbation of these regions in black hindwing genotypes recreated a yellow bar, revealing their spatially limited activity. In the lineage, the candidate CRE from yellow-barred phenotype morphs is interrupted by a transposable element, suggesting that -regulatory structural variation underlies these mimetic adaptations. Our work shows that functionally controls scale colour fate and that its -regulatory regions control a phenotypic switch in a modular and pattern-specific fashion.