Crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis : A rising model organism
Often the importance of model organisms is talked about in the field of developmental biology and constant efforts are made to add more model organisms to the list of famous lab models such as Drosophila, C.elegans, Mouse or more recently Zebra fish.These model systems have played significant role in elucidating molecular mechanism underlying patterning and growth during development. However we need more model organisms especially ones belonging to privileged phylogenetic positions in order to perform comparative studies to extend the data found in model animals to other organisms. Comparative studies will allow us to understand the extent to which these processes are conserved among different species, and to decipher how these mechanisms change during evolution. But to do so (comparative studies) we need to develop techniques for genetic manipulation that will allow functional studies in organisms that have not been genetically traceable in the past.
The amphipod crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis is becoming established as a model organism for developmental studies within the arthropods. Crustaceans, in particular, show a remarkable range of morphologies and provide a useful outgroup to the insects. There are several factors that goes in favor or parhyale for making an important model orgainms such as:
1) The phylogenetically strategic position of Parhyale
2) Ease of experimental manipulation
3) Straightforward to rear in the laboratory
4) Large numbers of embryos available year-round and a detailed staging system has been developed to characterize P. hawaiensis embryogenesis.
5) Well worked out protocols are present to perform in situ hybridization to study mRNA localization, and immunohistochemistry to study protein localization.
6) Trasgenesis is possible ,allowing functional studies to be carried out beyond previously established model systems in insects.
7) Gene knock out through RNAi and Morpholinos.
Major credit should go the labs of Nipam Patel and Michalis Averof for making Parhyale a successful model system which can used to understand questions related to field of development and evolution.Recently there were two articles in same issue of PNAS from these labs, one showing ectopic studies of Hox gene Ultrabithorax in Parhyale and other article deals with knockout of Ultrabithorax.
References:
1) Danielle M. Liubicich, Julia M. Serano, Anastasios Pavlopoulos, Zacharias Kontarakis, Meredith E. Protas,
Elaine Kwan, Sandip Chatterjee, Khoa D. Tran, Michalis Averof, and Nipam H. Patel.
Knockdown of Parhyale Ultrabithorax recapitulates evolutionary changes in crustacean appendage morphology
PNAS 2009 106:13892-13896
2) Anastasios Pavlopoulos, Zacharias Kontarakis, Danielle M. Liubicich, Julia M. Serano, Michael Akam, Nipam H. Patel,and Michalis Averof.
Probing the evolution of appendage specialization by Hox gene misexpression in an emerging model crustacean
PNAS 2009 106:13897-13902
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