![]() ![]() This study focused on the effect of non-coding DNA on the WntA gene. ![]() When the researchers disabled the Optix gene, the wings appeared black, and when the WntA gene was deleted, stripe patterns disappeared. Previous work in Reed’s lab has uncovered key color pattern genes: one (WntA) that controls stripes and another (Optix) that controls color and iridescence in butterfly wings. “We see that there’s a very conserved group of switches that are working in different positions and are activated and driving the gene,” Mazo-Vargas said. Mazo-Vargas is currently a postdoctoral researcher at George Washington University. ’20, the study’s first author and a former graduate student in the lab of senior author, Robert Reed, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “We are interested to know how the same gene can build these very different looking butterflies,” said Anyi Mazo-Vargas, Ph.D. The research supports the idea that an ancient color pattern ground plan is already encoded in the genome and that non-coding regulatory DNA works like switches to turn up some patterns and turn down others. ![]()
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