Spalt mediates an evolutionarily conserved switch to fibrillar muscle fate in insects

Cornelia Schönbauer, Jutta Distler, Nina Jährling, Martin Radolf, Hans-Ulrich Dodt, Manfred Frasch and Frank Schnorrer ()
Additional contact information
Cornelia Schönbauer: Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry, Am Klopferspitz 18, 82152 Martinsried, Germany
Jutta Distler: Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Staudtstr. 5, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
Nina Jährling: Vienna University of Technology, FKE, Dept. of Bioelectronics, Floragasse 7, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Martin Radolf: Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP), Dr. Bohrgasse 7, 1030 Vienna, Austria
Hans-Ulrich Dodt: Vienna University of Technology, FKE, Dept. of Bioelectronics, Floragasse 7, 1040 Vienna, Austria
Manfred Frasch: Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Staudtstr. 5, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
Frank Schnorrer: Max-Planck-Institute of Biochemistry, Am Klopferspitz 18, 82152 Martinsried, Germany

Nature, 2011, vol. 479, issue 7373, 406-409

Abstract: A gene to power insect flight The indirect flight muscles of flying insects have evolved to power insects' wings through as many as 1,000 oscillations per second and to produce extreme mechanical forces. These exquisitely specialized muscles contain fibrillar, stretch-activated myofibres that are very different from the tubular muscles found elsewhere in the insect's body. A genome-wide RNA interference screen for muscle morphogenesis in Drosophila has identified the transcription factor Spalt major (Salm) as a master regulator of fibrillar flight-muscle fate. Salm switches the structure of muscles from tubular to fibrillar during development by regulating gene transcription and splicing. The spalt gene is conserved in insects that are separated by 280 million years of evolution, and the fact that mutations in the human spalt-like gene SALL1 cause heart abnormalities in Townes–Brocks syndrome suggests that spalt function might also determine fibrillar stretch-activated muscle in vertebrates.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10559 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:479:y:2011:i:7373:d:10.1038_nature10559

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature10559

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().