In the recent past, modular robot assembly and metamorphosis has been evolved using gene regulatory networks. However, until now, no methodology exists to engineer such a regulatory network. Three existing representations will be employed to describe robot metamorphosis. A graph rewriting grammar describes state and connectivity transitions between robot organisms at the most abstract level. A ...

This review focuses on what is known about the immune transcriptome during metamorphosis of Xenopus laevis and Silurana (Xenopus) tropicalis. This subject is of importance to obtain a global understanding of the physiological changes operating during metamorphosis. In turn, a good knowledge of the physiology of amphibian metamorphosis may contribute to the fight against amphibian decline and he...

Apoptotic cell death plays an important role in many developmental pathways in multicellular animals. Here, we show that metamorphosis in the basal invertebrate Hydractinia echinata (Cnidaria) depends on the activity of caspases, the central enzymes in apoptosis. Caspases are activated during metamorphosis and this activity can be measured with caspase-3 specific fluorogenic substrates. In affi...

Several environmental xenobiotics have been found to affect the metamorphosis of amphibians. In this study we exposed tadpoles of the Common frog Rana temporaria from hatching to metamorphosis to two known endocrine disruptors, the estrogenic pharmaceutical 17 -ethinylestradiol and the antiandrogenic/antiestrogenic fungicide prochloraz to determine their effect on 1) days to metamorphosis and s...

In Carapus homei, reef colonisation is associated with a penetration inside a sea cucumber followed by heavy transformations during which the length of the fish is reduced by 60%. By comparing vertebral axis to otolith ontogenetic changes, this study aimed (i) to specify the events linked to metamorphosis, and (ii) to establish to what extent these fish have the ability to delay it. Different l...

In 2009 we reported that depletion of Dicer-1, the enzyme that catalyzes the final step of miRNA biosynthesis, prevents metamorphosis in Blattella germanica. However, the precise regulatory roles of miRNAs in the process have remained elusive. In the present work, we have observed that Dicer-1 depletion results in an increase of mRNA levels of Krüppel homolog 1 (Kr-h1), a juvenile hormone-depen...

Sclerotium-forming filamentous fungi are of great agricultural and biological interest because they can be viewed as models of simple metamorphosis. They differentiate by asexually producing sclerotia but the processes involved in sclerotial metamorphosis were poorly understood. In 1997, it was shown for the first time that the sclerotial differentiation state in Sclerotium rolfsii concurred wi...

While ontogenetic analyses of skull development have contributed to our understanding of phylogenetic patterns in vertebrates, there are few studies of taxa that undergo a relatively discrete and rapid change in morphology during development (metamorphosis). Morphological changes occurring in the head at metamorphosis in tiger salamanders (Ambystoma tigrinurn) were quantified by a morphometric ...

Metamorphosis (Gr. meta- "change" + morphe "form") as a biological process is generally attributed to a subset of animals: most famously insects and amphibians, but some fish and many marine invertebrates as well. We held a symposium at the 2006 Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) annual meeting in Orlando, FL (USA) to discuss metamorphosis in a comparative context. Specifica...