PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Toshiya Ando
AU  - Takeshi Matsuda
AU  - Kumiko Goto
AU  - Kimiko Hara
AU  - Akinori Ito
AU  - Junya Hirata
AU  - Joichiro Yatomi
AU  - Rei Kajitani
AU  - Miki Okuno
AU  - Katsushi Yamaguchi
AU  - Masaaki Kobayashi
AU  - Tomoyuki Takano
AU  - Yohei Minakuchi
AU  - Masahide Seki
AU  - Yutaka Suzuki
AU  - Kentaro Yano
AU  - Takehiko Itoh
AU  - Shuji Shigenobu
AU  - Atsushi Toyoda
AU  - Teruyuki Niimi
TI  - Repeated inversions at the <em>pannier</em> intron drive diversification of intraspecific colour patterns of ladybird beetles
AID  - 10.1101/347906
DP  - 2018 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 347906
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/06/15/347906.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/06/15/347906.full
AB  - How genetic information is modified to generate phenotypic variation within a species is one of the central questions in evolutionary biology. Here we focus on the striking intraspecific diversity of more than 200 aposematic elytral (forewing) colour patterns of the multicoloured Asian ladybird beetle, Harmonia axyridis, which is regulated by a tightly linked genetic locus h. Our loss-of-function analyses, genetic association studies, de novo genome assemblies, and gene expression data reveal that the GATA transcription factor gene pannier is the major regulatory gene located at the h locus, and suggest that repeated inversions and cis-regulatory modifications at pannier led to the expansion of colour pattern variation in H. axyridis. Moreover, we show that the colour patterning function of pannier is conserved in the seven spotted ladybird beetle, Coccinella septempunctata, suggesting that H. axyridis’ extraordinary intra-specific variation may have arisen from ancient modifications in a conserved elytral colour patterning mechanisms in ladybird beetles.