PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Vitória Tobias-Santos
AU  - Diego Guerra-Almeida
AU  - Flavia Mury
AU  - Lupis Ribeiro
AU  - Mateus Berni
AU  - Helena Araujo
AU  - Carlos Logullo
AU  - Natália Martins Feitosa
AU  - Jackson de Souza-Menezes
AU  - Evenilton Pessoa Costa
AU  - Rodrigo Nunes-da-Fonseca
TI  - Multiple roles of the polycistronic gene <em>tarsaless/mille-pattes/polished-rice</em> during embryogenesis of the kissing bug <em>Rhodnius prolixus</em>
AID  - 10.1101/667022
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 667022
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/11/667022.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/11/667022.full
AB  - 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 hemimetabolous insects remains unknown. Thus, we analyzed the function of the tal/pri/mlpt ortholog in a hemimetabolous insect, the kissing bug Rhodnius prolixus (Rp). First, sequence analysis shows that Rp-tal/pri/mlpt polycistronic mRNA encodes two small peptides (11 to 14 amino acids) containing a LDPTG motif. Interestingly, a new hemipteran-specific conserved peptide of approximately 80 amino acids was also identified by in silico analysis. In silico docking analysis supports the high-affinity binding of the small LDPTG peptides to the transcription factor Shavenbaby. Rp-tal/pri/mlpt in situ hybridization and knockdown via RNA interference showed a conserved role of Rp-tal/pri/mlpt during embryogenesis, with a major role in the regulation of thoracic versus abdominal segmentation, leg development and head formation. Altogether, our study shows that tal/pri/mlpt segmentation role is conserved in the common ancestor of Paraneoptera and suggests that polycistronic genes might generate order specific smORFs.