Throughout the Earth’s history, evolution has developed a great number of different organisms with an incredible variety of forms and sizes. These morphologies are tailored during development by modifying the expression pattern of key genes and by the modulation of hormone activation. The main goal of this lab is, therefore, to understand how changes in gene and hormone regulation affect morphology evolution, particularly in relation to the origin of insect metamorphosis. The Evolution and Developmental Biology lab addresses these questions by comparing the development and metamorphosis of Drosophila melanogaster, Tribolium castaneum and Thermobia domestica.
Principal Investigator
Current members
Ongoing projects
Publications
Lin X.; De Schutter K.; Chafino S.; Franch-Marro X.; Martín D.; Smagghe G. 2019. Target of rapamycin (TOR) determines appendage size during pupa
formation of the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum
. Journal of Insect Physiology. 117 doi: doi.org/10.1016/j.jinsphys.2019.103902
Chafino S.; Ureña E.; Casanova J.; Casacuberta E.; Franch-Marro X.and Martín D. 2019. Upregulation of E93 Gene Expression Acts as the
Trigger for Metamorphosis Independently of the Threshold Size in the Beetle Tribolium castaneum.Cell Reports. 11(4):1178–1191. doi: doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2019.03.094
Martinez R.; Esteve-Codina A.; Herrero-Nogareda L.; Ortiz-Villanueva E.; Barata C.; Tauler R.; Raldúa D.; Piña B.; Navarro-Martín L. 2018. Dose-dependent transcriptomic responses of zebrafish eleutheroembryos to Bisphenol A. Environmental Pollution. 243 :988-997 doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2018.09.043
Chafino, S.; López-Escardó, D.; Benelli, G.; Kovac, H.; Casacuberta, E.; Franch-Marro, X.; Kathirithamby, J.; Martín, D. 2018. Differential expression of the adult specifier E93 in the strepsipteran Xenos vesparum Rossi suggests a role in female neoteny. Scientific Reports. 8(1):14176 doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-32611-y
Campbell, K.; Lebreton, G.; Franch-Marro, X.; Casanova, J. 2018. Differential roles of the Drosophila EMT-inducing transcription factors Snail and Serpent in driving primary tumour growth. PLoS Genetics. 14(2):e1007167 doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1007167