Early segmentation in the mite Archegozetes longisetosus reveals conserved and derived aspects of chelicerate development

Abstract

The arthropod body plan is comprised of several repeating segments along the anteroposterior body axis. This high degree of conservation, however, obfuscates the wide degree of underlying developmental variation present across and within arthropod groups. In chelicerates, the arthropod clade containing mites, spiders, scorpions, and horseshoe crabs, development is the most similar at the stages following early germ band segmentation. Comparative studies of chelicerate segmentation prior to these events, however, remain scarce. In order to elucidate and identify possible shared and derived aspects of chelicerate segmentation, we followed the early prosomal (anterior) segmentation in the model mite Archegozetes longisetosus using the expression of the conserved segmental marker hedgehog (hh). Our data indicate that the ancestral chelicerate likely utilized the gene hedgehog in a group of cells surrounding the germ disc. We also provide evidence that chelicerate segmentation, albeit via the conserved “short/intermediate germ” mode, progresses differently in the prosoma between Archegozetes and spiders and thus early, anterior segmentation in chelicerates is heterochronic.