Using the wings of these insects as a tool to study how growth is regulated, biologists at the University of Rochester have discovered that changes in expression of a well-known cell regulator gene called "unpaired" (upd) accounts for wing growth differences between males of closely related species. Unpaired is distantly related to a class of genes called "interleukins'" which affect cell growth and specialization in humans. The discovery illustrates the principle that animals -- from insects to humans -- often use the same "genetic toolkit," despite immense differences in their biology. The findings are being published in the current issue of the journal Science.
Prof. John (Jack) Werren and doctoral student David Loehlin isolated the gene causing the wing difference through a technique called positional cloning. The large-winged N. giraulti and small-winged N. vitripennis wasps were crossbred, resulting in hybrid wasps with mixed chromosomes. Afterwards, the offspring with the largest wings were crossbred with pure N. vitripennis wasps, until, after ten generations, Werren and Loehlin had pure N. vitripennis wasps, with one exception: The young wasps now had DNA for large wings. They then used the same method to "break" the isolated genetic material into parts, in order to investigate how DNA flanking the gene affected its regulation and growth of the wings.
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