Anastrepha ludens is a major pest of fruits including citrus and mangoes in Mexico and Central America with major economic and social impacts. Despite its importance, our knowledge on its embryonic development is scarce. Here, we report the first cytological study of embryonic development in A. ludens and provide a transcriptional landscape during key embryonic stages. We established 17 stages of A. ludens embryogenesis that closely resemble the morphological events observed in Drosophila. In addition to the extended duration of embryonic development, we observed notable differences including yolk extrusion at both poles of the embryo, distinct nuclear division waves in the syncytial blastoderm and a heterochronic change during the involution of the head. Characterization of the transcriptional dynamics during syncytial blastoderm, cellular blastoderm and gastrulation, showed that approximately 9000 different transcripts are present at each stage. Even though we identified most of the transcripts with a role during embryonic development present in Drosophila, including sex determination genes, a number of transcripts were absent not only in A. ludens but in other tephritids such as Ceratitis capitata and Bactrocera dorsalis. Intriguingly, some A. ludens embryo transcripts encode proteins present in other organisms but not in other flies. Furthermore, we developed an RNA in situ hybridization protocol that allowed us to obtain the expression patterns of genes whose functions are important in establishing the embryonic body pattern. Our results revealed novel tephritid-specific features during A. ludens embryonic development and open new avenues for strategies aiming to control this important pest.

中文翻译：

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新的特福列特特有的特征从Anastrepha ludens胚胎发育的细胞学和转录组学分析中揭示出来。

Anastrepha ludens是墨西哥和中美洲的主要水果害虫，包括柑橘和芒果，对经济和社会产生重大影响。尽管它很重要，但我们对其胚胎发育的了解却很少。在这里，我们报道了首个A. ludens胚胎发育的细胞学研究，并提供了关键胚胎阶段的转录过程。我们建立了A. ludens胚胎发生的17个阶段，这些阶段与果蝇中观察到的形态学事件非常相似。除了延长胚胎发育的持续时间外，我们还观察到了显着的差异，包括胚胎两极的卵黄质挤出，合胞体胚层中明显的核分裂波以及头部向内旋转的异时性变化。合胞胚盘中转录动力学的表征，细胞胚盘和胃胚形成，表明每个阶段大约存在9000种不同的转录本。即使我们确定了大多数转录物在果蝇中存在的胚胎发育过程中都起作用，包括性别决定基因，但不仅在A. ludens中而且在其他裂殖动物中都没有许多转录物，如头孢状角膜枯萎病和桔小实蝇。有趣的是，一些A. ludens胚胎转录本编码存在于其他生物中但不存在于其他果蝇中的蛋白质。此外，我们开发了一种RNA原位杂交方案，使我们能够获得其功能在建立胚胎体模式中很重要的基因的表达模式。我们的研究结果揭示了A期间新出现的特发性甲状腺激素特异特征。