Vitória Tobias Santos

• Master of Science
• PhD Student at Observatoire Océanologique de Villefranche sur Mer

The dissemination of neglected tropical diseases that is performed by insect vectors is highly dependent on processes that take place during embryogenesis, herein defined as the process from egg deposition until hatching. To efficiently maintain the next generation of infective animals, eggs that are laid by the Chagas disease vector Rhodnius proli...

Genes encoding small open-reading frames (smORFs) have been characterized as essential players of developmental processes. The smORF Tarsal-less/mille-pattes/polished-rice has been thoroughly investigated in holometabolous insects, such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum, while its function in hemi...

Gene regulatory networks (GRNs) evolve as a result of the coevolutionary processes acting on transcription factors (TFs) and the cis-regulatory modules they bind. The zinc-finger TF zelda (zld) is essential for the maternal-to-zygotic transition (MZT) in Drosophila melanogaster, where it directly binds over thousand cis-regulatory modules to regula...

Insect embryonic dorso-ventral patterning depends greatly on two pathways: the Toll pathway and the Bone Morphogenetic Protein pathway. While the relative contribution of each pathway has been investigated in holometabolous insects, their role has not been explored in insects with a hemimetabolous type of development. The hemimetabolous insect Rhod...

Chelicerates, which include spiders, ticks, mites, scorpions, and horseshoe crabs, are members of the phylum Arthropoda. In recent years, several molecular experimental studies of chelicerates have examined the embryology of spiders; however, the embryology of other groups, such as ticks (Acari: Parasitiformes), has been largely neglected. Ticks an...

Sharks are notorious for their exceptional dental diversity, which is frequently used as a proxy for ecological function. However, functional inferences from morphology need to consider morphological features across different organizational scales, from small cusplets to patterns at the level of the entire jaw. Here, we deploy a set of classic and...

Ascidians are among the most common invasive marine invertebrates worldwide. Many species of non-indigenous ascidians (NIAs) have successfully colonized the Mediterranean Sea, notably within anthropized coastal lagoons and harbors. Although invasive species are generally characterized by their broad ecological tolerance, different ascidian species...

Genes encoding small open-reading frames (smORFs) have been characterized as essential players of developmental processes. The smORF tarsaless/mille-pattes/polished-rice has been thoroughly investigated in holometabolous insects, such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum, while its function in hemime...

Genes encoding small open-reading frames (smORFs) have been characterized as essential players of developmental processes. The smORF tarsaless/mille-pattes/polished-rice has been thoroughly investigated in holometabolous insects, such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum , while its function in hemim...

Zelda homologs in several Pancrustacea species. (XLSX)

Gene IDs of 3250 genes with the motif GTAGGTAY in the 2kb upstream regions of T. castaneum genes protein-coding genes. (XLS)

List of 141 Dm-zld targets during the MZT with one-to-one orthologs among Tc-zld predicted targets. (XLS)

A representative nGFP embryo injected with dsneo dsRNA (see Methods for a detailed description). (MP4)

Primers used in quantitative qRT-PCR experiments. (XLSX)

DAVID functional analysis and enriched ontology terms of the genes listed in S3 Table. (XLS)

A representative nGFP embryo injected with Tc-zld dsRNA (see Methods for a detailed description). (MP4)

The development of a digestive system is an essential feature of bilaterians. Studies of the molecular control of gut formation in arthropods have been studied in detail in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. However, little is known in other arthropods, especially in non-insect arthropods. To better understand the evolution of arthropod aliment...

The hemiptera Rhodnius prolixus is a blood-feeding insect and a primary vector of Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of the Chagas disease. Over the past century, Rhodnius has been the subject of intense investigations, which have contributed to unveil important aspects of metabolism and physiology in insects. Recent technological innovations...

Gene regulatory networks (GRN) evolve as a result of the coevolutionary process acting on transcription factors and the cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) they bind. The zinc-finger transcription factor (TF) zelda (zld) is essential for maternal zygotic transition (MZT) in Drosophila melanogaster, where it directly binds over thousand CRMs to regulate c...

The hemiptera Rhodnius prolixus is a blood-feeding insect and a primary vector of Trypanosoma cruzi, the etiological agent of the Chagas disease. Over the past century, Rhodnius has been the subject of intense investigations, which have contributed to unveil important aspects of metabolism and physiology in insects. Recent technological innovations...

Os artrópodes possuem o maior número de espécies dentro do reino animal e possuem também uma grande variabilidade morfológica. No Brasil, nosso grupo tem focado em estudar o desenvolvimento embrionário de organismos pertencentes ao filo Arthropoda, particularmente de organismos vetores de doenças ou causadores de grandes prejuízos econômicos, como...

Genes containing small open reading frames (smORFs) constitute a new group of eukaryotic genes expected to represent 5% of Drosophila melanogaster transcribed genes. In this review we provide a historical perspective in their recent discovery, describe their general mechanism and discuss the importance of smORFs for future genomic and transcriptomi...

Genes that contain small open reading frames (smORFs) constitute a new group of eukaryotic genes and are expected to represent 5% of the Drosophila melanogaster transcribed genes. In this review we provide a historical perspective of their recent discovery, describe their general mechanism and discuss the importance of smORFs for future genomic and...

Chelicerates, which include spiders, ticks, mites, scorpions, and horseshoe crabs, are members of the phylum Arthropoda. In recent years, several molecular experimental studies of chelicerates have examined the embryology of spiders; however, the embryology of other groups, such as ticks (Acari: Parasitiformes), has been largely neglected. Ticks an...

Control of energy metabolism is an essential process for life. In insects, egg formation (oogenesis) and embryogenesis is dependent on stored molecules deposited by the mother or transcribed later by the zygote. In oviparous insects the egg becomes an isolated system after egg laying with all energy conversion taking place during embryogenesis. Pre...

Protein concentration changes during Tribolium embryogenesis. Protein content was normalized to egg number. Protein concentration is reduced during the first 4 hours of embryogenesis and increases between 20 and 24 hours. Between 24 and 48 hours a large reduction is observed. This level is maintained in the next 24 hours (48–72 hours) and not alter...

Knockdown of GSK-3 impairs Tribolium embryonic development. Nuclear DAPI stainings during germ band elongation of WT (A) and of Tc-GSK-3 RNAi embryos (B,C). (A) In Control (WT) limb buds (white arrows) and ventral midline (white arrowheads) are evident, while Tc-GSK-3 knockdown embryos (B,C) lack limb buds and display a broader appearance. In C ven...