Abstract

Unlike passive rupture of the human chorioamnion at birth, the insect extraembryonic (EE) tissues -the amnion and serosa -actively rupture and withdraw in late embryogenesis. Withdrawal is essential for development and has been a morphogenetic puzzle. Here, we use new fluorescent transgenic lines in the beetle Tribolium castaneum to show that the EE tissues dynamically form a basal-basal epithelial bilayer, contradicting the previous hypothesis of EE intercalation. We find that the EE tissues repeatedly detach and reattach throughout development and have distinct roles. Quantitative live imaging analyses show that the amnion initiates EE rupture in a specialized anterior-ventral cap. RNAi phenotypes demonstrate that the serosa contracts autonomously. Thus, apposition in a bilayer enables the amnion as 'initiator' to coordinate with the serosa as 'driver' to achieve withdrawal. This EE strategy may reflect evolutionary changes within the holometabolous insects and serves as a model to study interactions between developing epithelia.

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Author details

  1. Maarten Hilbrant

    Institute for Developmental Biology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Thorsten Horn

    Institute for Developmental Biology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Stefan Koelzer

    Institute for Developmental Biology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Kristen A Panfilio

    Institute for Developmental Biology, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany
    For correspondence
    kristen.panfilio@alum.swarthmore.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Copyright

© 2016, Hilbrant et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Maarten Hilbrant
  2. Thorsten Horn
  3. Stefan Koelzer
  4. Kristen A Panfilio
(2016)
The beetle amnion and serosa functionally interact as apposed epithelia
eLife 5:e13834.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.13834

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https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.13834

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