Meeting Abstract
Hox genes encode transcription factors that help specify anterior-posterior positional information during animal development. They are also expressed in adult and regenerating tissues (Barucca et al., 2016). Among animals, many annelids show remarkable regenerative abilities. The annelid Lumbriculus variegatus demonstrates posterior and anterior regeneration, involving both epimorphosis and morphallaxis (Özpolat and Bely, 2016), but the expression of Hox genes during L. variegatus regeneration has not been reported. To provide context for Hox expression patterns in regenerating tissue, we first analyzed expression in non-regenerating tissue. Here we present the expression pattern of two Hox genes, Labial A and Post-1, in anterior and posterior portions of mature L. variegatus (clade I). After determining that either 18s rRNA or actin are acceptable housekeeping genes for our qRT-PCR studies, we found that the labial A and Post-1 Hox gene mRNAs are found in both anterior and posterior regions of bisected L. variegatus. Researchers have noted the utility of studying the development of annelid segment formation (Kuo and Lai, 2019; Balavoine, 2014) and Hox gene expression (Barucca et al., 2016) in a wide variety of taxa. To our knowledge this is the first report of Hox gene expression patterns in the Lumbriculidae family of annelids.
